Gherardi v. Conn. Co.

• Decision Date: 30 April 1918
• Citation: 92 Conn. 454,103 A. 668
• Parties: GHERARDI v. CONNECTICUT CO.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

103 A. 668

92 Conn. 454

GHERARDI

v. CONNECTICUT CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 30, 1918.

Wheeler, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Lucien F. Burpee, Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by William Thomas Gherardi against the Connecticut Company. From a finding and award for plaintiff by the compensation commissioner, defendant appealed to the superior court, which confirmed the award, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

December 26, 1915, Joseph Gherardi, a long time employe of the defendant as a lineman, while engaged in his work, was, after an unusually strenuous day's exertion in the repair of its lines and poles thrown into disorder by a severe snow and wind storm, siezed by what the compensation commissioner has found was an acute dilation of the heart, and shortly thereafter on the same day died therefrom. The finding of the commissioner is that the heart attack was caused by the deceased's unusual expenditure of strength immediately prior thereto, and was the result of an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment.

The deceased was 49 years of age, and a widower. The claimant was his only child, and lived with his father, both boarding. At the time of his father's death he was 22 years of age. The finding of the commissioner, in so far as it bears further upon the relations of the father and son, was as follows:

"The claimant was not physically strong, nor did he present the appearance of a robust young man. He was irregular in his work, and during periods when he was idle he always secured financial aid from his father, whom he saw every Sunday. During the month of September prior to the aforesaid injury, when the claimant was out of employment, his father had given him board, clothing, spending money, and car fare to the amount of $35. During the previous June he had paid his board and given him money to the amount of $25. Other assistance was given from time to time as needed. No books were kept and it is not possible from the testimony to arrive at the exact amount which the father had given the son during the few months previous to his death. At the time of the father's death the son was working for the New Departure Manufacturing Company, in Elmwood. He had tried the line of work at which his father was engaged, and had to give it up on account of his health. There was no evidence of any contributions by the father to the support of the son during the months of October, November, and December."

The record sent up by the commissioner also shows certain other conceded facts testified to by the claimant. He began work for the New Departure Manufacturing Company, as stated in the finding, in September, 1915, earning $13 a week, and remained in that employment continulously until his father's death and down to the hearing before the commissioner, which took place November 13, 1916. During all this time he was self-supporting.

Upon these facts the commissioner ruled that the claimant was a partial dependent of his father at the time of the latter's death, and awarded him compensation as such partial dependent.

Seth W. Baldwin, of New Haven, for appellant. Frank P. McEvoy, of Waterbury. for appellee.

PRENTICE, C. J. (after stating the facts as above). The compensation commissioner, with evident hesitation, held that this claimant was, at the time of his father's death, partial dependent of the latter, and awarded him compensation accordingly. This conclusion and award appear to have been largely, if not entirely, controlled by the fact that the son had been from time to time in receipt of financial aid from his father, and that, brought up as he had been, he had become accustomed to rely upon such contributions for his maintenance.

The customary receipt of financial assistance from another, although supplying a welcome and helpful aid to self and family support, does not suffice to convert the recipient into a dependent or partial dependent of the donor, nor does is suffice that the donee has come to rely upon the contributions so made in the provision of that support. It is indeed true that dependency arises only where financial aid has been furnished and has come to be relied upon by the recipient for purposes of support. But those are by no means the only conditions that must exist to create dependency as our Workmen's Compensation statute uses that term. There must, in addition, be a reliance on the assistance received for the purpose and for no other or broader purpose than that of providing self and family with the means of living judged by the class and position in life of the recipient. Powers v. Hotel Bond Co., 89 Conn. 143, 152, 93 Atl. 245; Blanton v. Wheeler & Howes Co., 91 Conn. 226, 231, 99 Atl. 494; Simmons v. White, 80 L. T. R. 344, 345.

Nor is that all. Dependency involves the existence of another important condition. One may live in idleness and actual dependence without being what our compensation law regards as a dependent. No such encouragement is given to sloth and conditions inducive of pauperism as would result from the continuance at an employer's expense of habits of indolence on the part of would-be dependents. Parents may, if they will, pamper their children and indulge them in habits of nonexertion and reliance upon others, but the law does not accept situations thus created as ones it is called upon to foster or aid in continuing. In other words, the law does not necessarily accept conditions as they exist at the time of a workman's decease through the creation of the parties responsible for them as conclusively determining a state of dependency. It rather looks to all the circumstances to discover what in fairness and right they ought to be. One who, as the result of parental affection, indulgence, weakness or folly, had been permitted to grow up in idleness and a love of ease may not for that reason alone successfully pose as a dependent entitled to continued assistance. If there are other reasons why he may not under all the circumstances reasonably be expected to be self and family supporting by the exercise of reasonable efforts to that end which he is competent to make, the situation becomes fundamentally changed, and the conditions of dependency begin to appear.

We have no purpose to attempt to phrase a complete and exhaustive definition of the word "dependent" as our statute uses it. But this much may be said broadly and generally that no one, not belonging to the enumerated classes of persons conclusively presumed to be dependent, is entitled to be regarded as a dependent or partial dependent whose financial resources at his command or within his power to command by the exercise of such efforts on his part as he reasonably ought to exert in view of the existing conditions, are sufficient to sustain himself and family, in a manner befitting his class and position in life without being supplemented by the outside assistance which has been received or some measure of it. See Blauton v. Wheeler & Howes Co., 91 Conn. 226, 231, 99 Atl. 494. Of course a claim of dependency is not to be defeated by mere proof that the claimant can by the exercise of his best endeavors support himself and family by his own unaided efforts. Howell v. Vivian, 85 L. T. R. 529, 530; Powers v. Hotel Bond Co., 89 Conn. 143, 152, 93 Atl. 245. But as it is no purpose of the law to give aid and comfort to slackers in respect of their obligations as members of society, so it is that a claim of dependency will meet defeat if it appear that the claimant by the expenditure of such efforts as, under all circumstances, ought fairly and reasonably to be expected of him is of ability to be self and family supporting according to the proper measure of such support.

Turning now to the situation as disclosed by the commissioner's finding, we learn that the claimant, at the time of his father's death, was a man grown, single, and past his majority. For the three months immediately prior to that event he had been working steadily at a living wage in a mechanical establishment, and was still so working when the hearing was had some eleven months later. He had previously worked intermittently. The finding supplies no details as to where, when, or how long continued such previous employments were, or why they became terminated, save that he had attempted to work as a lineman, as his father was doing, and had given up that employment as not suited to his health and strength. The finding is barren of reasons why, as a full grown single man, he could not reasonably have been expected to be self-supporting as readily as the ordinary man of his years, save that he was not physically strong or robust in appearance, and had felt unequal, for reasons of health, to continuing the strenuous activities of a lineman.

It would seem that his 14 months of continuous shop experience had furnished a fair degree of demonstration that he was not laboring under a serious physical handicap, and there is nothing in the finding to indicate that he was. Prior to his going to work where he is now employed, to wit, in the month of September preceding his father's death, he had periods of nonemployment, but whether these arose for other reasons than parental indulgence or disinclination...