Conzo v. Aetna Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 February 1998
• Docket Number: No. 15691,15691
• Citation: 705 A.2d 1020,243 Conn. 677
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: John CONZO v. AETNA INSURANCE COMPANY et al.

Page 1020

705 A.2d 1020

243 Conn. 677

John CONZO v. AETNA INSURANCE COMPANY et al.

No. 15691.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 5, 1997.

Decided Feb. 17, 1998.

Paul J. Dorsi, Assistant Corporation Counsel, with whom were Henry Szadkowski, Assistant Corporation Counsel, and, on the brief, Michael P. Farrell, Corporation Counsel, for appellant (defendant City of West Haven).

Eugene A. Cooney, with whom, on the brief, was Rodd J. Mantell, Hartford, for appellee (named defendant).

Before CALLAHAN, C.J., and BERDON, NORCOTT, PALMER and McDONALD, JJ.

BERDON, Associate Justice.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether an employee who is injured in the course of his employment while occupying a motor vehicle owned by his employer is entitled under General Statutes § 38a-336 (f) ¹ to collect uninsured/underinsured (uninsured) ² motorist benefits from his or her self-insured employer.

The following facts are not disputed. The plaintiff, John Conzo, while operating a police vehicle during the course of his employment as a police officer for the defendant city of West Haven (West Haven), sustained personal injuries in a collision with an underinsured vehicle. The plaintiff received workers' compensation benefits from West Haven for the injuries he sustained in the collision. He also received the $20,000 limit of the third party tortfeasor's automobile insurance policy. The plaintiff sought to recover uninsured motorist benefits from West Haven, which is self-insured pursuant to General Statutes § 38a-371 (c), ³ and from the named defendant, Aetna Insurance Company (Aetna), which insured a vehicle owned by him. ⁴

Both West Haven and Aetna denied coverage of the plaintiff's claim for uninsured motorist benefits, each claiming the coverage of the other was applicable. The plaintiff then brought this action seeking a declaratory judgment to determine whether one or both of the defendants must provide uninsured motorist benefits for his loss, and whose coverage would be primary. Aetna moved for summary judgment claiming that West Haven has a duty to provide uninsured motorist benefits, and that those benefits are primary. West Haven also moved for summary judgment seeking a declaration that pursuant to General Statutes § 31-284(a), ⁵ the exclusivity provision of the Workers' Compensation Act, it had no duty to provide uninsured motorist benefits to an employee injured while operating a city owned vehicle during the course of his employment.

The trial court determined that both West Haven and Aetna are required to provide uninsured motorist benefits to the plaintiff, but that West Haven's coverage was primary and Aetna's coverage was secondary. ⁶ West Haven appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c). We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

We do not write on a clean slate with respect to the right of an employee to receive uninsured motorists benefits as a result of injuries sustained while operating an employer's motor vehicle during the course of employment. In 1992, in Bouley v. Norwich, 222 Conn. 744, 755, 610 A.2d 1245 (1992), a majority of this court held that § 31-284(a) prevented an employee from collecting uninsured motorist benefits from the employer. Id., at 755-56, 610 A.2d 1245. The court pointed out "that workers' compensation is an employee's only remedy for injuries that arise during the course of his employment," and that the exclusivity provision of § 31-284(a) applies whether the employee's claim is predicated on common-law tort, statute or contract. In CNA Ins. Co. v. Colman, 222 Conn. 769, 773, 610 A.2d 1257 (1992), a companion case to Bouley, the majority held that § 31-284(a) barred the employee's recovery even if it was from the employer's automobile liability insurance carrier because the carrier is "the alter ego of its insured, the employer...." The legislature promptly reacted by adopting No. 93-297, § 1(f), of the 1993 Public Acts, now codified as § 38a-336 (f), which provides: "Notwithstanding subsection (a) of section 31-284, an employee of a named insured injured while occupying a covered motor vehicle in the course of employment shall be covered by such insured's otherwise applicable uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage."

In 1996, in Reliance Ins. Co. v. American Casualty Co. of Reading, Pennsylvania, 238 Conn. 285, 291, 679 A.2d 925 (1996), we held, with respect to an employer who was insured by a commercial insurance policy for uninsured motorist coverage, that § 38a-336 (f) clearly was intended to reverse the majority holding in Colman and, in doing so, "was intended to be clarifying legislation and, as such, must be accepted as a declaration of the legislature's original intent pertaining to the interplay between the uninsured motorist provisions of ... § 38a-336 and the workers' compensation exclusivity provision of § 31-284." Consequently, we applied § 38a-336 (f) retroactively. In Reliance Ins. Co., we also noted, however, that we were leaving open the question of the effect of § 38a-336 (f) on cases such as Bouley in which the employer is "self-insured." Id., at 289 n. 4, 679 A.2d 925.

West Haven argues that § 38a-336 (f) cannot be interpreted to apply to self-insured employers because it does not expressly create an exception to the bar set forth in § 31-284(a). In response, Aetna argues that § 38a-336 (f) reverses the decision in Bouley as well as in Colman because the legislature intended to guarantee that the benefits of uninsured motorist coverage extend to all employees, regardless of the status of their employer as a self-insurer or as a purchaser of a commercial policy of insurance. We agree with Aetna.

Our resolution of this issue is guided by well established principles of statutory construction. "[O]ur fundamental objective is to ascertain and give effect to the apparent intent of the legislature.... In seeking to discern that intent, 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.) Dodd v. Middlesex Mutual Assurance Co., 242 Conn. 375, 379, 698 A.2d 859 (1997).

In its argument, West Haven focuses on the language of § 38a-336 (f), which excepts from the exclusivity provision of the Workers' Compensation Act "an employee of a named insured" that shall be covered by "such insured's otherwise applicable uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage." West Haven points out that because it is self-insured, it does not come within the purview of the phrase "named insured" in § 38a-336 (f), which is defined as "the person specifically designated in the policy as the one protected and, commonly, it is the person with whom the contract of insurance has been made." Black's Law Dictionary (6th Ed.1990). We disagree for several reasons.

First, West Haven, as a self-insurer, comes within the definition of insured. West Haven, pursuant to § 38a-371 (c), ⁷ elected to become a self-insurer for its automobile liability including uninsured motorist coverage. Section 38a-371 (c) provides that in making the election to become a self-insurer, West Haven must provide "assurance for payment of all obligations imposed by this section substantially equivalent to those afforded by a policy of insurance that would comply with this section." Therefore, upon electing to become a self-insurer, West Haven not only became an insurer; General Statutes § 38a-363 (b); ⁸ but also, the functional equivalent of a "named insured" under § 38a-336 (f). Furthermore, West Haven concedes that every other subsection of § 38a-336 which regulates uninsured motorist coverage is applicable to self-insureds, notwithstanding the absence of any reference to "self-insured" in those subsections. ⁹ Reading § 38a-336 as a whole, as we must; Munroe v. Great American Ins. Co., 234 Conn. 182, 187, 661 A.2d 581 (1995); we are persuaded that West Haven's restrictive interpretation of the phrase "named insured" in § 38a-336 (f) is untenable.

Second, the legislative history of § 38a-336 (f) persuades this court that the legislature intended to mandate uninsured motorist benefits for employee victims of accidents involving inadequately insured vehicles irrespective of the status of the victim's employer as a self-insurer or as a purchaser of a commercial policy of insurance. "The legislature is presumed to know the judicial interpretation placed upon a statute.... It is further presumed that when the legislature subsequently acts with respect to a statute, it does so with full awareness of relevant judicial interpretations." (Citations omitted.) Charles v. Charles, 243 Conn. 255, 262-63, 701 A.2d 650 (1997); see also Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U.S. 522, 525, 107 S.Ct. 1391, 1393, 94 L.Ed.2d 533 (1987). The decisions in Bouley and Colman, the relevant judicial interpretations of the uninsured motorist statute, § 38a-336, rendered less than one year before the legislature enacted § 38a-336 (f), were grounded upon an analysis of the interplay between the workers' compensation exclusivity provision found in § 31-284(a) and § 38a-336, not on the basis of any distinction between self-insurers and commercial insurers. The Colman decision makes this clear by stating that "[t]he fact that the employee's suit is based on an uninsured motorist insurance policy issued by a commercial insurer does not warrant a departure from the exclusive remedy policy of our Workers' Compensation Act." CNA Ins. Co. v. Colman, supra, 222 Conn. at 773, 610 A.2d 1257. This was further underscored in Colman when the majority stated that the presence of insurance "is not relevant to the issue of whether a...