Carriero v. Borough of Naugatuck

• Decision Date: 03 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 15610,15610
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Robert CARRIERO v. BOROUGH OF NAUGATUCK et al.

Page 706

707 A.2d 706

243 Conn. 747

Robert CARRIERO v. BOROUGH OF NAUGATUCK et al.

No. 15610.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 5, 1997.

Decided March 3, 1998.

Carlos A. Santos, with whom, on the brief, was Peter E. Mariano, Naugatuck, for appellant (named defendant).

David J. Morrissey, Naugatuck, for appellee (plaintiff).

Frank A. May, Glastonbury, filed a brief for the City of Hartford et al. as amici curiae.

Before BORDEN, BERDON, NORCOTT, KATZ and PALMER, JJ.

BORDEN, Associate Justice.

The sole issue in this certified appeal is whether the "ceiling" imposed by General Statutes § 7-433b (b) ¹ upon benefits awarded under what is commonly referred to as the Heart and Hypertension Act, General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) § 7-433c, ² applies to cumulative payments to a retired police officer composed of permanent partial disability compensation awarded under § 7-433c and a retirement pension based solely on the number of years of service. Following our grant of certification, ³ the named defendant, the borough of Naugatuck, ⁴ appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court affirming the decision of the compensation review board (board). Carriero v. Nauga 43 Conn.App. 773, 778, 685 A.2d 1141 (1996). The board had affirmed the decision of the workers' compensation commissioner for the fifth district (commissioner) ordering the defendant to pay the plaintiff, Robert Carriero, a retired police officer who previously had been employed by the defendant, the full measure of permanent partial disability benefits that he had been awarded pursuant to § 7-433c, notwithstanding that he had already retired and had begun collecting a retirement pension based on the number of years of his service, and notwithstanding that the total cumulative payments from these two sources exceeded the ceiling imposed by § 7-433b (b).

The ceiling on benefits imposed by § 7-433b (b) provides that "the cumulative payments ... for compensation and retirement or survivors benefits under section 7-433c shall be adjusted so that the total of such cumulative payments received by such member or his dependents or survivors shall not exceed one hundred per cent of the weekly compensation being paid, during their compensable period, to members of such department in the same position which was held by such member at the time of his death or retirement...." The Appellate Court reasoned that this ceiling applies only when both the disability compensation benefits and the retirement benefits have been awarded pursuant to § 7-433c. The defendant claims that the ceiling applies whenever any portion of the retiree's compensation has been awarded under § 7-433c. We agree with the defendant and, accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The relevant facts and procedural history are undisputed and are set forth in the opinion of the Appellate Court. "The commissioner found the following facts. The plaintiff is a retired Naugatuck police officer. In January, 1991, in accordance with its contract with the police union, [the defendant] awarded the plaintiff a pension based solely on his thirty years of service with its police department. This pension was unrelated to his [subsequent heart and] hypertension claim under § 7-433c, and his disability was not an issue or a consideration in [the defendant's] decision to grant the pension.

"[Through a voluntary agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant] on March 1, 1991, the plaintiff was awarded permanent partial disability benefits because of a 42.5 percent disability of his heart. These disability benefits were awarded pursuant to § 7-433c." Carriero v. Naugatuck, supra, 43 Conn.App. at 774-75, 685 A.2d 1141.

Accounting for the full measure of both the pension and the disability compensation, the cumulative weekly payments from the defendant to the plaintiff would have exceeded the ceiling provided by § 7-433b (b) to cumulative retirement and disability compensation benefits to which it applies. Because the defendant considered the ceiling to apply to the payments that it was making to the plaintiff, the defendant limited its disability and retirement payments accordingly.

The plaintiff sought an order from the commissioner requiring the full payment of both his § 7-433c disability benefits and his retirement pension. The commissioner granted that order. The defendant appealed to the board, which affirmed the commissioner's decision. The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the board's decision. This certified appeal followed.

The defendant claims that the Appellate Court improperly concluded that the § 7-433b (b) ceiling does not apply in this case. The defendant argues that the language of § 7-433b (b) delineating precisely the payments that the subsection limits, namely, "cumulative payments ... for compensation and retirement ... benefits under section 7-433c," applies to cumulative payments of disability compensation and retirement pension benefits when any portion of those payments has been awarded under § 7-433c. We agree.

We first note that, in Lambert v. Bridgeport, 204 Conn. 563, 567-68, 529 A.2d 184 (1987), we addressed the precise question involved in this appeal, albeit in dictum. The facts in Lambert were virtually identical to the facts here. The plaintiff, a retired Bridgeport police officer, had suffered an off-duty heart attack. Subsequently, he retired and began to collect retirement benefits through a contributory pension plan established pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement between the city and the police union. The pension benefits were not paid pursuant to § 7-433c. Several months after his retirement, he submitted a claim with the workers' compensation commissioner for disability compensation benefits under § 7-433c. The commissioner awarded those benefits, which, in combination with the plaintiff's nondisability retirement pension, exceeded the salary paid to working officers in comparable positions. Citing the then newly adopted § 7-433b (b), the city refused to pay combined benefits beyond the salary being paid to active officers, and the plaintiff brought an action for full payment of the combined benefits. Id., at 565-69, 529 A.2d 184.

On appeal, this court ruled that § 7-433b (b) did not apply to the case because the plaintiff's rights to both the pension and the heart and hypertension compensation payments had accrued prior to July, 1977, the effective date of No. 77-520 of the 1977 Public Acts, which had created § 7-433b (b). Id., at 568-69, 529 A.2d 184. Before reaching that conclusion, however, we stated that "[a]ccording to [§ 7-433b (b) ] the benefits paid under the private pension agreement must be reduced so as not to exceed the 100 percent limit "; (emphasis added) id., at 567-68, 529 A.2d 184; suggesting that § 7-433b (b) applied to the cumulative payments of disability benefits paid pursuant to § 7-433c, and a retirement pension not paid pursuant to § 7-433c. We now conclude that, as the dictum in Lambert indicated, the § 7-433b (b) ceiling applies to the total payments composed of heart and hypertension disability payments and retirement pension payments not related to § 7-433c, and we hold accordingly.

With this background in mind, we turn to the interpretation of § 7-433b (b). ⁵ "The process of statutory interpretation involves a reasoned search for the intention of the legislature. Frillici v. Westport, 231 Conn. 418, 431, 650 A.2d 557 (1994). In other words, we seek to determine, in a reasoned manner, the meaning of the statutory language as applied to the facts of this case.... In seeking to determine that meaning, we look to the words of the statute itself, to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) United Illuminating Co. v. New Haven, 240 Conn. 422, 431, 692 A.2d 742 (1997).

Before scrutinizing the language of § 7-433b (b), it is helpful to review § 7-433c. Section 7-433c (a) provides in relevant part that "in the event a uniformed member of a paid municipal fire department or a regular member of a paid municipal police department ... suffers either off duty or on duty any condition or impairment of health caused by hypertension or heart disease resulting in his death or his temporary or permanent, total or partial disability, he or his dependents, as the case may be, shall" be eligible to receive two categories of "heart and hypertension" benefits. Specifically, (1) "from his municipal employer [he shall be eligible to receive] compensation and medical care in the same amount and [in] the same manner as that provided under chapter 568 if such death or disability was caused by a personal injury which arose out of and in the course of his employment and was suffered in the line of duty and within the scope of his employment, and from the municipal or state retirement system under which he is covered, he or his dependents, as the case may be, shall [be eligible to] receive the same retirement or survivor benefits which would be paid under said system if such death or disability was caused by a personal injury which arose out of and in the course of his employment, and was suffered in the line of duty and within the scope of his employment...." General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) § 7-433c (a).

These § 7-433c payments constitute "special compensation, or even an outright bonus, to qualifying policemen and firemen." Grover v. Manchester, 168 Conn. 84, 88, 357 A.2d 922, appeal dismissed, 423 U.S. 805, 96 S.Ct. 14, 46 L.Ed.2d 26 (1975). "[T]he outright bonus provided by the statute is that the claimant is not required to prove that the heart disease is causally connected to his employment, which he would ordinarily have to establish in order to...