Lead Opinion
Opinion
Thе question in this case is whether, pursuant to the proviso set forth in General Statutes § 31-294c (a), the one year or the two year filing period applies to a dependent’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits when an employee suffers a work-related accident and dies on the same day. The defendants, Asbury Automotive Group/David McDavid Acura (Asbury) and its insurer, Travelers Indemnity Company, appeal from the decision of the workers’ compensation review board (board) affirming the decision of the workers’ compensation commissioner for the fourth district (commissioner) awarding benefits to the plaintiff, Donna Wikander, the widow of Thomas Wikander.
The following uncontested facts, as found by the commissioner, are relevant to this appeal. Thomas Wikander was employed by Asbury on September 25, 2007, when he suffered a fatal heart attack while on a business trip in Texas. The medical examiner in Texas, William B. Rohr, determined that Thomas Wikander’s conditions of employment had created considerable stress for him and that work-related stress had been a “major contributing factor to [his] sudden death . . . .” The plaintiff filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits in Texas in 2008, but she did not pursue that claim to judgment because she was told by an attorney that Texas did not allow workers’ compensation benefits for heart attacks. On April 14, 2010, Edward J. Kosinski, a cardiologist with an office in Bridgeport, concurred with the determination of Rohr that there was a causal link between the work-related stress suffered by Thomas Wikander and his fatal heart attack.
On September 15, 2009, the plaintiff filed a form 30D seeking to collect benefits in Connecticut. The defendants, however, did not file a form 43 to contest liability on the claim. Accordingly, on November 13, 2009, the plaintiff filed a motion to preclude the defendants from contesting liability. The defendants responded by arguing that the denial of liability that they had filed in the plaintiffs Texas case was sufficient to сomply with § 31-294c. They also argued that the commissioner lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiffs claim for benefits because it was untimely. The commissioner did not agree with either of the defendants’ arguments. Accordingly, the commissioner precluded the defendants from contesting liability, and he found that the plaintiffs claim was timely, having been filed within two years of Thomas Wikander’s death.
On appeal, the defendants claim that the commissioner was without subject matter jurisdiction because the plaintiffs claim for benefits was untimely. They argue that, if an employee dies on the day of the work-related accident, as in the present case, death does not result “within two years from the date of the accident,” but, instead, death results on the date of the accident, and the proviso language of § 31-294c (a) does not apply. (Emphasis added.) We conclude that acceptance of the defendant’s argument would create an
“Under our well established standard of review, [w]e have recognized that [a]n agency’s factual and discretionary determinations are to be accorded considerable weight by the courts. . . . Cases that present pure questions of law, however, invoke a broader standard of review than is ordinarily involved in deciding whеther, in light of the evidence, the agency has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally or in abuse of its discretion. . . . We have determined, therefore, that . . . deference ... to an agency’s interpretation of a statutory term is unwarranted when the construction of a statute . . . has not previously been subjected to judicial scrutiny [or to] ... a governmental agency’s time-tested interpretation . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Harpas v. Laidlaw Transit, Inc.,
Section 31-294c (a) provides in relevant part: “No proceedings for compensation under the provisions of this chapter shall be maintained unless a written notice of claim for compensation is given within one year from the date of the accident . . . which caused the personal injury, provided, if death has resulted within two years from the date of the accident ... a dependent or dependents . . . may make claim for compensation within the two-year period or within one year from the date of death, whichever is later. . . .”
“Under General Statutes § 31-306 (a), a dependent of a deceased employee is entitled to survivor’s benefits when that employеe has died ‘from an accident arising out of and in the course of employment . . . .’
In this case, it is not disputed that Thomas Wikander suffered a fatal heart attack and died on September 25, 2007, that the plaintiff filed a notice of claim on September 15, 2009, nearly two years after Thomas Wikandеr’s death, but clearly within the two year filing period under § 31-294c (a), if applicable, and that the defendant did not file a form 43 to contest liability. The question with which we are presented is whether the legislature intended to limit a dependent filing a notice of claim to one year in the case where an accidental injury and death occur on the same day, while allowing at least two years to file such notice if death occurs at least
The defendants are correct in arguing that, for purposes of determining when a filing period runs, we generally do not count the first day, the day of the act. See Alliance Partners, Inc. v. Voltarc Technologies, Inc.,
We conclude that the work-related injury and death of Thomas Wikander occurred “within two years from the date of the accident” because that phrase implicitly encompasses those employees who died on the date of the accident. “It is a fundamental principle of statutory construction that courts must interpret statutes using common sense and assume that the legislature intended a reasonable and rational result.” Longley v. State Employees Retirement Commission,
“Within,” as defined in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th Ed. 2003), means in relevant part: “[1] before the end of . . . [2] not beyond the . . . limitations of . . . [and] [3] in or into the range of . . . .” See also First Federal Savings & Loan Assn. of Rochester v. Pellechia,
Insofar as the defendants’ argument also might be construed as acknowledging that the proviso language applies, but arguing, nonetheless, that the “or one year from the date of death” language controls in this case, we also reject such a contention. The proviso language of § 31-294c (a) provides in relevant part that “provided, if death has resulted within two years from the date of the accident . . . the legal representative of the deceased employee, may make claim for compensation within the two-year period or within one year from the date of death, whichever is later. . . .” We already have determined that an employee who suffers a work-related injury and dies as a result thereof on the same day, dies “within two years from the date of the accident . . . .” His or her legal representative then “may make claim for compensation within the two-year period or within one year from the date of death, whichever is later. . . .” We conclude that, in order to agree with the defendant’s contention, we would have to ignore the plain language of the statute that gives the dependent the later of the two applicable periods to file a claim for benefits.
After considering the plain languаge of the statute, we conclude that the proviso language of § 31-294c (a) means that the dependent, after the death of the employee who had to have died within two years of
As explained by our Supreme Court in Fredette, “[d]uring the 1920s, the legislature made two significant changes to the predecessor to § 31-294c (a). First, the legislature established different triggering events for the commencement of the limitations period based on whether the compensable injury resulted from an accident or an occupational disease. . . . Second, the legislature added the first version of the proviso . . . which expanded the limitations period from, one to two years for claims of dependents in cases wherein the employee had not filed a claim.” (Citations omitted; emphasis added.) Id., 827. “At the close of that decade the amended statute of limitations provided in relevant part: ‘No proceedings for compensation under the provisions of this chapter shall be maintained unless a written notice of claim for compensation shall be given within оne year from the date of the accident or from the first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, as the case may be, which caused the personal injury, provided, if death shall have resulted within two years from the date of the accident or first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, a dependent or dependents may make claim for compensation within said two-year period ....’” (Emphasis in original.) Id., 827-28.
The court further explained that “the legislature introduced the proviso, not as a condition precedent for the commencement of dependents’ claims, but rather to articulate a modified — at the time, extended — limitations period for the commencement of such claims. The proviso served as an exception to the underlying one year limitations period for cases in which the employee had, during his lifetime, failed to satisfy that one year limitations period, but still had died within the two year period for which dependents’ claims were compensable under the predecessor to § 31-306. ... In other words, for depеndents with claims under the predecessor to § 31-306, for ‘death resulting from accident or an occupational disease within two years from the date of the accident or first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease’ . . . the proviso expanded the limitations period of the predecessor to § 31-294c (a) from one year to ‘said two-year period ....’” (Citations omitted.) Id., 828-29.
After some additional changes to the predecessor of § 31-294c (a), which did not include changes to the proviso language; see id., 829-30; the legislаture, in 1959, “modified the proviso’s two year limitations period for dependents’
“Two years later, the legislature moved into the proviso of § 31-294c (a) that part of the statute that previously had authorized dependents or legal representatives of employees to file claims in cases of fatal injuries. . . . The amended statute provided in relevant part: ‘[I]f death has resulted within two years from the date of the accident or first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, a dеpendent or dependents, or the legal representative of the deceased employee, may make claim for compensation within such two-year period or within one year from the date of death, whichever is later.’ ”
As explained in Fredette, the legislature added the additional “one year from the date of death” language to correct the problem that existed when an employee died nearly two years after the date of the accidental injury, or from the first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, which gave the dependent only days within which to file a timely claim to be within the two year statute of limitations. The additional one year period meant that, when an employee died within two years from the date of the accident, the dependent had at least one year to file a claim following the employee’s death. “[T]he legislature originally crafted the proviso of § 31-294c (a) as an expansion of the underlying one year limitations period for cases in which the employee had, during his lifetime, failed to satisfy the underlying statute of limitations but still had died relatively ‘swiftly’ . . . namely, within two years of the injury.”
We concludе that the plain language of § 31-294c (a) dictates that, if an employee is claiming an injury as a result of a work-related accident, the employee has one year to file a claim for benefits. If an employee is
In the present case, the defendants failed to file a form 43 contesting their liability for Thomas Wikander’s fatal heart attack. Accordingly, it is presumed that his heart attack was a work-related accidental injury, which caused his death on the same day as the accident. The plaintiff, his dependent, therefore, pursuant to the proviso language of § 31-294c (a), had the two year period to file a claim for benefits; see id., 834 (“legislature originally crafted the proviso of § 31-294c (a) as an expansion of the underlying one year limitations period”); and she properly did so.
The decision of the workers’ compensation review board is affirmed.
Notes
In its memorandum of decision, the board, after analyzing the defendants’ claims on their merits, held that it found no error in the commissioner’s decision and, therefore, affirmed the finding and award of the commissioner. In addition to affirming the decision of the commissioner, however, the board also stated that the defendants’ appeal was dismissed. We conclude that this language was used in error. As we stated in Krol v. A.V. Tuchy, Inc.,
We note that although the defendants failed to file a form 43 and, thus, were precluded from contesting their liability to the plaintiff, our Supreme Court has determined that “the conclusive presumption cannot bar defenses related to the commissioners’ subject matter jurisdiction under the Workers’ Compensation Act. See Castro v. Viera,
Specifically, § 31-306 (a) provides in relevant part: “Compensation shall be paid to dependents on account of death resulting from an accident arising out of and in the course of employment or from an occupational disease . . .
The legislature further amended the statute of limitations regarding occupational disease; however, “[t]he operation of the proviso with regard to accident claims was not affected by the 1980 amendment, which only increased the underlying limitations period for claims involving occupational disease.” Fredette v. Connecticut Air National Guard, supra,
Explaining the proviso language of § 31-294e (a) and the court’s analysis in Fredette, the workers’ compensation law section of the Connecticut Practice Series explains: “The Court [in Fredette], painstakingly examining the history of the provision, held that the provision did not shorten the time for filing a survivor’s claim, but rather was intended to give survivors additional time for filing claims beyond the one-year period from the date of the injury or first manifestation; this one-yearperiod also applied to occupational diseases until 1980, when the statute was amended to allow three years from the first manifestation, rather than one year, for the filing of claims in occupational disease cases. After 1980, the proviso is essentially inapplicable to occupational disease claims, since the three-year period from the date of the first manifestation will always be longer than or coincident with the time provided by the proviso. The proviso continues, however, to provide an extended period for survivors’ claims for deaths from accidental injuries.” R. Carter et al., 19 Connecticut Practice Series: Workers’ Compensation (2011) § 18:7.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring. I concur in the majority’s result but write separately to echo the concerns about the lack of clarity in General Statutes § 31-294c (a) expressed by our Supreme Court in Fredette v. Connecticut Air National Guard,
The language of the statute that is particularly troubling is “a written notice of claim for compensation is given within one year from the date of the accident . . . (Emphasis added.) General Statutes § 31-294c (a). It is not clear what, if any, is the difference between “one year from” and “one year of’ the accident.
To apply the proviso portion of § 31-294c (a) under the facts of this case, that is where death occurs on the same day as the
“It is intended that the employee should know what compensation he or his dependents would receive in the event of injury, and that payment should be made speedily by a procedure at once simple and inexpensive. It is intended that the employer should know his liability in this regard, and so might include it among the items charged to operation.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Tolli v. Connecticut Quarries Co.,
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully concur in the majority opinion.