209 Conn. 219 | Conn. | 1988
This is an appeal from a decision of the compensation review division affirming the workers’ compensation commissioner’s (commissioner) finding and award of dependent’s benefits to the plaintiff, Virginia Iacomacci, pursuant to General Statutes § 31-306 of the Workers’ Compensation Act (act). The award as affirmed was made subject to a “waiting period” as required by § 31-306 (i), which had been repealed at the time of the award to the plaintiff.
The legislature repealed § 31-306 effective October 1, 1978. The sole issue on this appeal is whether the elimination of the waiting period by the legislature was intended to benefit dependents of those persons injured before, as well as after, the effective date of repeal. Both the statute and its legislative history are silent on this question. We conclude that the General Assem
The operative facts are not in dispute. On February 19,1974, the plaintiffs husband, Ermen Iacomacci, suffered a heart attack as the result of a compensable injury. He received compensation benefits for this disability until December 30,1981, when he died of cardiac dysrhythmia. The commissioner concluded that the 1974 heart attack was the cause of the decedent’s death and, accordingly, awarded the claimant compensation.
The plaintiff argues that the legislature intended that the elimination of the waiting period was to apply to all future surviving dependents without regard to the date of the injury which brought them within the scope of the Workers’ Compensation Act. We do not agree.
When the General Assembly enacted Public Acts 1978, No. 78-369, and repealed the previously required “waiting period,”
By the time Public Acts 1978, No. 78-369, was enacted, we had made clear through earlier decisions our view that new workers’ compensation legislation affecting rights and obligations as between the parties, and not specifying otherwise, applied only to those persons who received injuries after the legislation became effective, and not to those injured previously. This date of injury rule was first referred to in 1916, in Schmidt v. O.K. Baking Co., 90 Conn. 217, 220-21, 96 A. 963 (1916). In 1921, we stated that “[t]he obligations of the employer to dependents of an employee in case of the death of an injured employee are . . . fixed and determined by the statute in force at the time of injury.” (Emphasis added.) Quilty v. Connecticut Co., 96 Conn. 124, 127, 113 A. 149 (1921).
In the fifty-seven years that followed we continued to use the date of injury rule in determining the rights and obligations as between the parties following revi
There is nothing in the language or history of Public Acts 1978, No. 78-369, that overcomes the presumption that the General Assembly was fully aware of the date of injury rule; Murach v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra; or causes us to depart from “ ‘[t]he normal rule of statutory construction [that if the legislature] intends for legislation to change the interpretation of a judicially created concept, it makes that intent specific. . . .’ ” Kelly v. Robinson, 479 U.S. 36, 47, 107 S. Ct. 353, 93 L. Ed. 2d 216 (1986). The presumption that the legislature was aware of these tenets is further supported by its passage of two workers’ compensation revisions that specifically stated that new benefits were to accrue to previously injured workers. A 1969 public act made cost-of-living adjustments to compensation benefits for total incapacity “as a result of an injury sustained prior to October 1, 1969.” (Emphasis added.) Public Acts 1969, No. 696, § 5. Further, a 1977 enactment made the second injury fund responsible for cost-of-living adjustments to death benefits “as a result of death arising out of a compensable injury occurring on or before September 30, 1977.” (Emphasis added.) Public Acts 1977, No. 77-554, § 1. Thus, the legislature’s failure to specify in Public Acts
The plaintiff further argues that the compensation review division impermissibly determined: that Public Acts 1978, No. 78-369, was unconstitutional; that the appellee has no standing to challenge the constitutionality of the act; that the appellee has not, in any event, properly preserved such an issue for our review; and •finally, that in the event we should review its constitutionality, the act is, in fact, constitutional. Our examination of the record discloses no constitutional issue raised or decided concerning Public Acts 1978, No. 78-369. A single reference in the memorandum of decision is made to the state and federal constitutions in a quotation from our earlier decision in Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Developing Co., supra, concerning a 1927 amendment to the Workers’ Compensation Act in which we indicated that there might be constitutional implications in a retrospective application of workers’ compensation revisions.
There is no error.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
General Statutes (Rev. to 1972) § 31-306 (i) provides in part: “If death occurs later than two years from the date of injury . . . the period for which compensation shall be due hereunder shall be reduced by the period for which compensation payments have been made to the deceased employee
General Statutes (Rev. to 1972) § 31-306 provides in part: “Compensation shall be paid on account of death resulting from an accident arising out of and in the course of employment.”
We note that the repealed statute did not specifically provide for a waiting period but rather a reduction in benefits. This reduction could be accomplished by bonding or otherwise securing the return of benefits at the time the benefits terminated, i.e., the death or remarriage of the surviving spouse. There is nothing in the record, however, that suggests that the commis
The passage from Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Developing Co., 112 Conn. 129, 141, 151 A. 518 (1930), quoted by the compensation review division was as follows: “The compensation under the Act of 1919 was substantially less than that under the Act of 1927, the later one being to the pecuniary disadvantage of the defendant. The validation of the Act of 1927 if effectual would thus increase the amount the defendant would be required to pay over that required by the Act of 1919. The defendant’s right of defense, which affected its substantial interests, became fixed in present enjoyment and available to the defendant under the statute in effect at the