Chambers v. Electric Boat Corp., 17709.

• Decision Date: 18 September 2007
• Docket Number: No. 17709.,17709.
• Citation: 283 Conn. 840,930 A.2d 653
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Mary CHAMBERS v. ELECTRIC BOAT CORPORATION et al.

930 A.2d 653

283 Conn. 840

Mary CHAMBERS v. ELECTRIC BOAT CORPORATION et al.

No. 17709.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 9, 2007.

Decided September 18, 2007.

Amy M. Stone, with whom was Richard L. Gross, Groton, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Robert S. Bystrowski, with whom was Cristin E. Sheehan, Hartford, for the appellee (named defendant).

Lucas D. Strunk, Glastonbury, for the appellee (defendant ACE USA/St. Paul Travelers Insurance Company).

BORDEN, NORCOTT, KATZ, PALMER and ZARELLA, Js.^*

BORDEN, J.

The plaintiff, Mary Chambers, appeals¹ from the decision of the compensation review board (board) affirming the decision of the workers' compensation commissioner for the eighth district (commissioner) dismissing the plaintiff's claim against the defendants, Electric Boat Corporation and its insurer, ACE USA/St. Paul Travelers Insurance Company, for dependent's benefits under the state Workers' Compensation Act (state act), General Statutes § 31-275 et seq. The plaintiff claims that the commissioner improperly construed General Statutes (Rev. to 1979) § 31-294,² which was repealed and is presently codified at General Statutes § 31-294c(a), to deprive the commissioner of subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's claim for dependent's benefits under General Statutes (Rev. to 1979) § 31-306(b),³ following the death of her husband, Peter Chambers (decedent). Specifically, we consider whether, under the limitations periods applicable in 1979, a dependent has filed a timely claim for dependent's benefits when the employee had filed a federal, but not a state, occupational disease claim during his life and died more than two years after the first manifestation of his disease. We answer that question in the negative and, accordingly, we affirm the decision of the board.

As set forth in the decision of the board, the relevant facts and procedural history are as follows. "The decedent was employed at the Electric Boat [Corporation] shipyard. On or about July 30, 1979, he filed a claim under the [Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. (federal act)] claiming he suffered from a work-related lung ailment. In October, 1980, he ceased working at Electric Boat [Corporation]. He did not file a [f]orm 30C seeking benefits under [the state act]. On January 31, 1999, [the decedent] died. On March 9,1999, his widow filed a [f]orm 30C seeking § 31-306 . . . death benefits under Connecticut law. The [defendants] filed a [f]orm 43 contesting the claim, and specifically contested jurisdiction." The commissioner dismissed the plaintiff's claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The plaintiff subsequently appealed to the board from the commissioner's decision dismissing her claim. The plaintiff claimed that the commissioner improperly had dismissed her claim on the ground of lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the notice of her dependent's claim was timely under § 31-294c(a). The board affirmed the commissioner's decision, and this appeal followed.

The plaintiff claims that the board improperly concluded that the commissioner properly had interpreted § 31-294c(a) to conclude that the plaintiff's claim for dependent's benefits was untimely. Specifically, the plaintiff contends that: (1) the limitations period of § 31-294c(a) for dependents' claims is separate and distinct from the limitations period for injury claims, such that the timely notice of claim by the decedent in his own right is not a prerequisite to her subsequent dependent's claim; and (2) in the alternative, if the timely filing of notice by the decedent in his own right is a prerequisite to her subsequent dependent's claim, then the decedent's claim under the federal act also satisfied the notice requirement of the state act. We conclude that the timely notice of claim by the decedent is, under the facts of the present case, a prerequisite to the plaintiff's dependents' claim, and we conclude that the decedent's federal act claim did not satisfy the notice of claim required under § 31-294c(a).

"As a threshold matter, we set forth the standard of review applicable to workers' compensation appeals. . . . It is well established that [a]lthough not dispositive, we accord great weight to the construction given to the workers' compensation statutes by the commissioner and review board. . . . Cases that present pure questions of law, however, invoke a broader standard of review than is ordinarily involved in deciding whether, in light of the evidence, the agency has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally or in abuse of its discretion. . . . We have determined, therefore, that the traditional deference accorded 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 . . . . There has been no prior judicial or time-tested interpretation of § 31-294c(a). Accordingly, our statutory analysis accords no deference to the board's interpretation of that statute. . . .

"[W]e are mindful of the principles underlying Connecticut practice in [workers'] compensation cases: that the legislation is remedial in nature . . . and that it should be broadly construed to accomplish its humanitarian purpose. . . . We also recognize, however, that the filing of a timely notice of claim is a condition precedent to liability and a jurisdictional requirement that cannot be waived. . . .

"When interpreting a statute, [o]ur fundamental objective is to ascertain and give effect to the apparent intent of the legislature. . . . The meaning of a statute shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered. General Statutes § 1-2z." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Fredette v. Connecticut Air National Guard, 283 Conn. 813, 820-821, 930 A.2d 666 (2007). Although the defendants contend that § 1-2z governs our review of § 31-294c(a) as it applies to the facts of this case, we find the statutory scheme "difficult to construe with complete consistency. . . ." Id., at 820, 930 A.2d 666. "Accordingly, our analysis is not limited, and we, therefore, apply our well established process of statutory interpretation, under which we seek to determine, in a reasoned manner, the meaning of the statutory language as applied to the facts of [the] 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. . . . We have previously recognized that our construction of the [state act] should make every part operative and harmonious with every other part insofar as is possible. . . . In applying these principles, we are mindful that the legislature is presumed to have intended a just and rational result." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 821-22, 930 A.2d 666.

I

The plaintiff first claims that the limitations period of § 31-294c(a) for dependents' claims is separate and distinct from the limitations period for injury claims, such that the timely notice of claim by the decedent in his own right is not a prerequisite to the plaintiff's subsequent dependent's claim. To the contrary, we conclude that the decedent's timely filing of notice was a prerequisite to the plaintiff's subsequent dependent's claim because the statute of limitations requires the filing of "some claim" within the applicable limitations period, and because the decedent lived beyond that limitations period without filing a claim within that period.

In Fredette v. Connecticut Air National Guard, supra, 283 Conn. at 822, 930 A.2d 666 we addressed the proviso language of § 31-294c(a), namely, "provided, if death has resulted within two years from the date of the accident or first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, a dependent or dependents, or 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."⁴ As part of our analysis of the issue in Fredette, we reviewed, as a threshold matter, the operation of the statute absent the foregoing proviso. In so doing, we concluded that the statute of limitations applies "to all potential claims under the act, including claims of the employee's estate or his dependents." (Emphasis in original.) Fredette v. Connecticut Air National Guard, supra, at 824, 930 A.2d 666. "Concomitantly, [we stated that] we conclude that the timely filing of any compensable claim under the act has the effect of satisfying the limitations period for all potential claims under the act. Because the limitations period begins to run when at least some claim has vested, however; Tolli v. Connecticut Quarries Co., 101 Conn. 109, 114, 124 A. 813 (1924) (`fixing the time of an injury at which some claimant would have the right to have compensation begin'); we also conclude that the failure to file any compensable claim within the applicable limitations period would have the effect of barring all claims under the act, irrespective of whether they yet had become compensable." (Emphasis in original.) Fredette v. Connecticut Air National Guard, supra, at 824, 930 A.2d 666.

We then elaborated that "§ 31-294c(a) requires, not that claims under the act be brought in any particular order, but rather that a compensable claim be filed within the applicable...