Bush v. Quality Bakers of America

• Decision Date: 07 August 1984
• Citation: 2 Conn.App. 363,479 A.2d 820
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: Arlyne BUSH v. QUALITY BAKERS OF AMERICA et al.

Page 820

479 A.2d 820

2 Conn.App. 363

Arlyne BUSH v. QUALITY BAKERS OF AMERICA et al.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 1, 1984.

Decided Aug. 7, 1984.

Douglas L. Drayton, Hartford, with whom, on brief, was Jason M. Dodge, Manchester, for appellants (defendants).

Gerard S. Spiegel, Bridgeport, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before DANNEHY, C.P.J., and HULL and BORDEN, JJ.

HULL, Judge.

In this workers' compensation case, these combined appeals raise questions concerning the constitutionality of the conclusive presumption of General Statutes § 31-297(b) and the subject matter jurisdiction of the workers' compensation district commissioner.

The facts are not in dispute. On May 2, 1980, the decedent, Roy Bush, who had been an employee of Quality Bakers of America (Quality), suffered a cardiac arrest and died after playing a racquetball game shortly after noon at a private health club with the president of Quality. Bush's widow, the claimant, filed a workers' compensation claim for survivor's benefits, providing written notice of her claim via certified mail to Quality on November 26, 1980. As of December 16, 1980, twenty days after receiving written notice of the widow's claim, Quality had not filed any notice of intention to contest the claim as required pursuant to General Statutes § 31-297(b). ¹

On January 26, 1982, the workers' compensation commission for the seventh district entered a finding of compensability for the decedent's death against Quality on the basis of the conclusive presumption established by General Statutes § 31-297(b), but found, in addition, that his death did not arise out of and during the course of his employment.

Quality and its workers' compensation carrier, Travelers Insurance Co., appealed the commissioner's finding and award to the compensation review division (CRD). On January 29, 1982, the defendants filed a motion requesting the CRD to reserve for the Appellate Session of the Superior Court the constitutional challenge to § 31-297(b) in accordance with then General Statutes § 31-324. ² The CRD denied the motion for reservation on November 9, 1982, from which Quality and Travelers appeal in appeal No. 2057. The CRD later affirmed the commissioner's decision, upholding the constitutionality of General Statutes § 31-297(b), but amended his findings to exclude the factual determination that the decedent's death did not arise out of his employment. From this decision, Quality also appeals. ³ That appeal, No. 2610, was consolidated with the first on November 14, 1983. Quality conceded at argument that since the second appeal, No. 2610, also involved the issue of constitutionality sought to be reserved in appeal No. 2057, No. 2057 was rendered moot. ⁴ Appeal No. 2057 is therefore dismissed for mootness.

Quality raises two issues which, as will be seen, overlap to some extent: (1) whether § 31-297(b) violates the due process clause of both the state and federal constitutions by conclusively presuming compensability of a claim if the employer fails to file a notice contesting liability within twenty days of receipt; and (2) whether the workers' compensation commissioner lacks jurisdiction to award compensation benefits when there is a finding that the employee's death did not arise out of and in the course of employment.

Quality argues that the conclusive presumption of § 31-297(b) is unconstitutional because there is no rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed. To support its contention, Quality cites the landmark case of Ducharme v. Putnam, 161 Conn. 135, 285 A.2d 318 (1971), holding unconstitutional General Statutes § 7-433a, ⁵ which established a conclusive presumption that a policeman's heart attack or hypertension was work related if the policeman had passed a pre-employment physical examination.

The Ducharme court stated the issue in oft-quoted language as follows: "As the defendant municipality has properly argued, the presumption created by the statute being a conclusive one, and hence not rebuttable by proof of the actual facts, it would require an adjudication that a perfectly healthy off-duty Putnam policeman who brought on a heart attack by overexertion on the last day of a lengthy out-of-state vacation suffered the attack 'in the course of his employment,' 'in the line of duty' and 'within the scope of his employment' by the city--despite the circumstance that that situation was entirely without foundation in fact. Constitutionally, the legislature can no more bind the courts to such a factually unsupportable conclusive adjudication than it can require their adjudication that a camel is a horse by the enactment of a statutory conclusive presumption that all four-footed animals are horses." Id., 140, 285 A.2d 318.

The question of whether the holding that the conclusive presumption was unconstitutional in Ducharme requires a similar holding concerning the conclusive presumption in General Statutes § 31-297(b) was faced squarely in DeLeon v. Jacob Bros., Inc., 38 Conn.Sup. 331, 446 A.2d 831 (1981), appeal dismissed, 456 U.S. 952, 102 S.Ct. 2026, 72 L.Ed.2d 447 (1982) (for want of a substantial federal question). The Appellate Session of the Superior Court determined in DeLeon that the conclusive presumption of compensability, where liability is not contested by the employer within twenty days of written notice, did not violate the employer's rights to procedural due process and equal protection of the laws. We concur with the reasoning of the DeLeon court as set forth in the following lengthy excerpt from that opinion: " 'Statutes creating permanent irrebuttable presumptions, which are neither necessarily nor universally true, are disfavored under both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, because they preclude individualized determination of the facts upon which substantial rights or obligations may depend. Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U.S. 441, 93 S.Ct. 2230, 37 L.Ed.2d 63 (1973).' Coleman v. Darden, 595 F.2d 533, 536 (10th Cir.1979).

" ' "A presumption of law must be based upon facts of universal experience and be controlled by inexorable logic." ' Ducharme v. Putnam, 161 Conn. 135, 140, 285 A.2d 318 (1971). To be constitutionally valid there must be a 'rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed ....' Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 467-68, 63 S.Ct. 1241 [1244-45], 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943). The United States Supreme Court 'has held more than once that a statute creating a presumption which operates to deny a fair opportunity to rebut it violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.' Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312, 329, 52 S.Ct. 358 , 76 L.Ed. 772 (1931).

"The broad scope of this irrebuttable presumption doctrine has been significantly narrowed, however, in more recent decisions involving economic areas. In Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975), the Supreme Court upheld a federal statute precluding survivors from receiving social security benefits unless the claimant's relationship to the wage earner existed at least nine months before his death. Thereafter, in Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 2882, 49 L.Ed.2d 752 (1976), the court validated a federal law creating two irrebuttable presumptions concerning miners' disability and death from complicated pneumoconiosis.

"While it is intellectually impossible to articulate accurately the doctrinal underpinning of the Supreme Court's recent decisions in the irrebuttable presumption area, 'congressional judgments in the form of "irrebuttable presumptions" in the economic area will be upheld where there is a rational relationship between the criteria set forth in the statutory mandate and a legitimate congressional purpose.' (Emphasis added.) Sakol v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 574 F.2d 694, 698 (2d Cir.1978).

"In Menzies v. Fisher, 165 Conn. 338, 334 A.2d 452 (1973), the Supreme Court reviewed the legislative history of § 31-297(b) and found that the act 'sought to correct some of the glaring inequities and inadequacies of the Workmen's Compensation Act. Among the defects ... were the needless, prejudicial delays in the proceedings ... delays by employers or insurers in the payment of benefits, lack of knowledge on the part of employees that they were entitled to benefits and the general inequality of resources available to claimants with bona fide claims.' Id., 342 . The court found that the object of the twenty day rule was 'to ensure (1) that employers would bear the burden of investigating a claim promptly and (2) that employees would be timely apprised of the specific reasons for the denial of their claim. These effects would, in turn, diminish delays in the proceedings, discourage arbitrary refusal of bona fide claims and narrow the legal issues which were to be contested.' Id., 343 . The court concluded that '[t]his rule is equitable because employers and insurers have the necessary resources to fulfill its mandate ....' Id., 345 .

"The statute and its legislative history were thereafter reexamined in Adzima v. UAC/Norden Division, 177 Conn. 107, 411 A.2d 924 (1979). The court there concluded that the twenty day rule applied only to cases where liability was contested, and not to situations where the extent of the medical disability was in dispute. In neither Menzies nor Adzima was the legitimacy of the legislative purpose of the means adopted to effect that end challenged by either the appellants or the Supreme Court. We see no reason to do so now.

"We conclude that the statute in question is economic in nature, that it articulates a legitimate legislative purpose and that the means adopted to produce the result bear a rational relationship to the stated purpose of the statute. This being the case, the conclusive presumption is entitled to be examined within the less expansive prohibitions found in Weinberger v. Salfi, supra, and Usery v. Turner...