Gonirenki v. American Steel & Wire Co.
| Decision Date | 11 April 1927 |
| Citation | 137 A. 26,106 Conn. 1 |
| Parties | GONIRENKI v. AMERICAN STEEL & WIRE CO. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Earnest C. Simpson and Arthur F. Ells, Judges.
Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by the American Steel & Wire Company against Joseph Gonirenki to open and modify an award of the Compensation Commissioner. An appeal to the Superior Court from the Commissioner's order dismissing the employer's motion was tried to the court and sustained and the cause remanded to the Commissioner to rule and pass upon the motion, and claimant appeals. No error.
Arthur B. O'Keefe and Jeremiah D. Shea, both of New Haven, for appellant.
Philo C. Calhoun and John T. Curtis, both of Bridgeport, for appellee.
Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and CURTIS, MALTBIE, HAINES, and HINMAN, JJ.
The claimant appeals from the judgment of the superior court, and among the errors assigned are the ruling of the court sustaining a demurrer to a plea to the jurisdiction filed by him and a motion to erase; the judgment from which the appeal is taken does not refer to this demurrer or to the motion to erase, or to the rulings of the trial court thereon; although these rulings are made grounds of appeal, we could not in any event consider them in the absence of their recital appearing in the judgment. No harm is done the respondent by this omission, since the judgment recites that the commissioner ruled that he had no power to open and modify the award for the reasons claimed in the motion to open and modify the award, and the claimed error in so ruling is the sole ground of the appeal from the commissioner to the Superior Court. Moreover, the parties were at issue as to this ruling, and the superior court, having heard the parties, sustained the appeal and remanded the cause to the commissioner, with direction to rule and pass on the motion to open and modify the finding and award.
Reason of appeal 5 assigns as error the court's " holding and deciding that the commissioner had power as a matter of law to reopen and modify the award for the reasons included in the respondent's motion." This ruling was not, as the respondent appears to conceive, a denial of the commissioner's power to open and modify the award for any cause, but a denial of his power to do so for the reasons appearing in this motion. The ruling can only be tested by determining the sufficiency of the reasons alleged in the motion, viz.:
" (1) Subsequent to the hearing held in this matter the claimant's physical condition became such as to prove that his disability was not due to injury, but to arteriosclerosis.
(2) The claimant's leg has since been amputated, and the pathological examination thereof furnishes further evidence, obviously unavailable at the time of the hearing that a condition existed at and prior to the time of disability which caused the incapacity.
(3) Developments in the claimant's condition since the hearing, and medical testimony taking such developments into account, will, the respondent respectfully submits induce the commissioner to modify his award of compensation to the claimant.
(4) Practically all the medical testimony at the hearing was premised upon an assumption that the claimant did not have arteriosclerosis. That he, in fact, did suffer from this is now established because of his subsequent condition, and that this caused his incapacity will be proven by competent medical testimony."
Under General Statutes, § 5355, the commissioner has power to modify an award at any time whenever it shall appear to him:
Grabowski v. Miskell, 97 Conn 76, 83, 115 A. 691, 693.
It is clear that claimant's motion to reopen this award does not fall under remedies (a) and (b), and must fall, if at all, under remedy (c). The changed conditions of fact under remedy (b) " refer to conditions which are different from those existent when the agreement or award was made. " Grabowski v. Miskell, supra, at page 83 (115 A. 694). Remedy (c) we have interpreted " as giving to the commissioner the same power to open and modify his award as our court of equity has to open and modify its judgment, without the limitation governing its exercise of this power, that in the given case it must appear that the private suitor could not in the exercise of reasonable diligence have theretofore sought the remedy he now seeks. " Grabowski v. Miskell, supra, at page 84 (115 A. 694). Since the commissioner has under this remedy the power of a court of equity, we inquire as to that court's power. Its power to grant new trials is for all the causes specified in General Statutes, § 5850, and under the clause " other reasonable causes" of that section is included every other cause for which a court of equity could grant a new trial, which includes at least the large field of mistake, accident, and fraud. Whether a court of equity may grant a new trial for a cause or causes other than these we are not called upon to determine. The only cause involved in this appeal is that for " the discovery of new evidence."
Our court has placed certain limitations upon the exercise of this power. The evidence must be newly discovered and not have been discoverable " before the former trial by the use of due diligence." It must not be merely cumulative, but it must appear in the petition or motion " that the new evidence would even probably be sufficient to turn the cause in favor of the plaintiff, and show that if a new trial were granted a different result would be produced; or that its effect will certainly be to make a doubtful case clear; or that any injustice was done on the former trial." Hart v. Brainerd, 68 Conn. 50, 54, 35 A. 776, 777.
The allegations of the motion that the evidence of the subsequent condition of the claimant, of the pathological examination of the amputated leg, and of the medical opinion based upon these facts, admit of no reasonable inference other than that these allegations were newly discovered and could not have been discoverable before the hearing upon the award by the use of due diligence. The correctness of the ruling of the trial court must therefore depend upon the exercise of this power.
The commissioner found in his award that the claimant was struck on the left arm, shoulder, and breast by a coil of wire weighing 200 pounds and causing an area of consolidation of the left lung which cleared up within a few days, but the injury caused an embolism, which in turn caused an infarct in the left lung. As a consequence a portion of the blood clot was carried to his brain, causing a thrombus which produced within a few days of the injury the gradual onset of a partial paralysis of the left side for which compensation was awarded. The motion alleges that practically all the medical testimony at the hearing was premised upon an assumption that the claimant did not have arteriosclerosis. The respondent's claim is that the newly discovered evidence will be such as to induce the commissioner to modify or reverse his award. The granting of or refusal to grant a new trial by a court under our rule is within the reasonable exercise of its discretion, and its exercise will not be overturned unless that discretion has been abused--that is, has been unreasonably exercised. Widman v. Kearns, 96 Conn. 254, 259, 114 A. 77; Moeller v. Johnston, 91 Conn. 23, 25, 98 A. 295; Selleck v. Head, 77 Conn. 15, 17, 58 A. 224; Palmer v. Whipple, 83 Conn. 477, 487, 76 A. 1002; note to Smith v. Rucker, 30 L.R.A. (N. S.) 1030.
The determination of this motion by the commissioner is, as we have said, the equivalent of a motion for a new trial to the court and governed by substantially the same principles as the motion or petition to open a judgment of the court and grant a new trial. If this motion were properly before the commissioner the question for decision would be, Did the commissioner unreasonably exercise the discretion vested in him in holding that he was without power to reopen and modify the award for the reasons stated in the respondent's motion? If this motion had been made to a court a procedural obstacle would have prevented its determination upon the merits. In a petition for a new trial to a court, or a motion to open an award of the commissioner, neither court nor commissioner has the opportunity to discover whether the newly discovered evidence would change the result or prove that injustice has been done unless it has before it the statement of, or a fair summary of, the evidence relating to the point in...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
In re Madison C.
...reason the rules governing new trials should be strictly adhered to." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Gonirenki v. American Steel & Wire Co. , 106 Conn. 1, 12, 137 A. 26 (1927) ; see also Lancaster v. Bank of New York , 147 Conn. 566, 578, 164 A.2d 392 (1960) (without rule limiting righ......
-
Graham v. Olson Wood Assocs., Inc.
...that claims procedure would be encumbered with the pleading formalities required in the courts"); cf. Gonirenki v. American Steel & Wire Co. , 106 Conn. 1, 9, 137 A. 26 (1927) ("we do not understand that [commissioners] have ever adopted a procedure requiring pleadings as in our courts, or ......
-
Reilly v. State
... ... State, 137 Conn. 58, 67, 75 A.2d 51; Gonirenki v. American Steel & Wire Co., 106 Conn. 1, 12, 137 A. 26; Apter v. Jordan, ... ...
-
Mikucka v. St. Lucian's Residence, Inc.
...will consider on appeal matters of procedure before the commissioner." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Gonirenki v. American Steel & Wire Co. , 106 Conn. 1, 8–9, 137 A. 26 (1927). The plaintiff argues that the commissioner, by not allowing her to present evidence about her vocational to......