Connolly v. Penn Seaboard Steel Corp.

• Decision Date: 01 March 1924
• Citation: Connolly v. Penn Seaboard Steel Corp., 100 Conn. 423, 123 A. 906 (Conn. 1924)
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: CONNOLLY v. PENN SEABOARD STEEL CORPORATION.

123 A. 906

100 Conn. 423

CONNOLLY v. PENN SEABOARD STEEL CORPORATION.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 1, 1924

Case Reserved from Superior Court, New Haven County; Christopher L. Avery, Judge.

John Henry Sheehan, of New Haven, for plaintiff.

John M. Comley, of Bridgeport, for defendant AEtna Life Ins. Co.

CURTIS, J.

The finding discloses the following facts: The plaintiff in February, 1918, was in the employ of the defendant, engaged in testing metals, and then suffered an injury by a blow upon his head, arising out of and in the course of his employment.

He notified his employer of his injury on the night in question and satisfied the statutory requirement as to a notice forthwith. Shortly thereafter he was discharged by the defendant because of inability to do his accustomed work.

During the year following the day of the injury, the plaintiff was incapacitated for labor, by reason of this injury, for a period in excess of the seven days required to entitle him to compensation under Gen. St. 1918, § 5348.

The plaintiff claimed on the hearing that he notified his employer of his claim for compensation by a paper signed by him on the night of his injury, which paper he also claimed gave the employer the notice of injury as above stated. The commissioner found certain evidential facts as to this paper giving notice of the injury to the defendant on the night of the injury, and The plaintiff claims that such evidential facts are equivalent to a finding that a written claim for compensation was duly served. One fatal defect of this contention is that the paper in question contained no claim for compensation, and was in no particular a claim for compensation even defectively stated; at the most it was merely a notice of injury. No written claim for compensation was otherwise served.

The plaintiff therefore never gave the defendant a written notice of claim for compensation as required by section 5360.

The commissioner found these facts:

" (a) The claimant did not know the results of his injury from a surgical standpoint until June 24, 1923, at which time he was definitely informed about them by Dr Francis H. Reilly. Dr. Reilly * * * caused X-rays to be taken.

(b) I find that on the occurrence in question the claimant sustained a fractured skull at the vertex, and at the same time a contrecoup fracture about two inches above the occipital prominence. I further find that the claimant has suffered such results from this fracture since that date; * * * that he has become nervous and to a greater or less extent incapacitated from labor.

(c) The claimant, during the period of something more than five years which has elapsed since his injury, has suffered many things, and...