Hill v. State Employees Retirement Commission

• Decision Date: 29 June 2004
• Docket Number: (AC 24478)
• Citation: 83 Conn. App. 599,851 A.2d 320
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: BRUCE HILL v. STATE EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT COMMISSION

83 Conn. App. 599

851 A.2d 320

BRUCE HILL v. STATE EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT COMMISSION

(AC 24478)

Court of Appeals of Connecticut.

Argued March 30, 2004.

Officially released June 29, 2004.

Lavery, C. J., and Schaller and Peters, JS.

Mark E. Merrow, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Thadd A. Gnocchi, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and William J. McCullough, assistant attorney general, for the appellee (defendant).

Opinion

PETERS, J.

Under specified circumstances, General Statutes § 5-192p authorizes the state employees retirement commission (commission) to grant a disability retirement pension to a person in state service. An applicant who has been in state service for less than ten years is entitled to such a pension only if the applicant has suffered a disability that is service connected. To determine the requisite service connection, the retirement commission is directed by § 5-192p (f) to utilize the expertise of the state medical examining board (medical board). The principal issue in this case is whether a pension applicant who is disappointed by an adverse decision of the medical board has a right to review by the commission to determine whether, as a matter of law, the medical board was precluded from making an independent determination of service connection in light of earlier workers' compensation proceedings arising out of the same facts. We affirm the judgment of the trial court dismissing the pension applicant's administrative appeal, but we do so on grounds other than those on which the court relied.

The plaintiff, Bruce Hill, filed an appeal in the Superior Court from a declaratory ruling by the defendant commission, which had denied his request for service connected disability retirement benefits. The commission based its ruling on a finding by the medical board that the plaintiff had not established that his injury was service connected. He alleged that he was nonetheless entitled to such benefits because he had been injured in an accident that, in workers' compensation proceedings, had been determined to be service connected. In light of that determination, the plaintiff maintained that the doctrine of collateral estoppel precluded the medical board from making a contrary finding and required the commission to grant his application for disability retirement benefits.

The trial court upheld the commission's denial of the plaintiffs pension application. It agreed with the commission that the governing statute conferred exclusive authority on the medical board to determine whether an employee's injury was service connected, a predicate for entitlement to disability retirement benefits. Concluding that the commission lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the merits of the medical board's finding, the court dismissed the plaintiffs appeal.

In his appeal to this court, the plaintiff maintains that the trial court improperly failed (1) to overrule the commission's determination that it lacked jurisdiction to review the medical board's finding that he failed to prove that his injury was service connected, (2) to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel and (3) to protect his constitutional right to due process. Because each of these issues raises a question of law, our review is plenary. See, e.g., DaCruz v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., 268 Conn. 675, 686, 846 A.2d 849 (2004) (collateral estoppel); State v. Long, 268 Conn. 508, 520-21, 847 A.2d 862 (2004) (due process); Lundborg v. Lawler, 63 Conn. App. 451, 455, 776 A.2d 519 (2001) (subject matter jurisdiction). Although we agree with the plaintiff's jurisdictional claim, we disagree with his collateral estoppel and due process claims. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. See Favorite v. Miller, 176 Conn. 310, 317, 407 A.2d 974 (1978) ("[w]here the trial court reaches a correct decision but on mistaken grounds, [the Supreme] [C]ourt has repeatedly sustained the trial court's action if proper grounds exist to support it"). To evaluate the plaintiffs arguments, we must review the factual record and the procedural history of this case. There is no dispute about either one.

The plaintiff was employed by the state of Connecticut state receiving home from December 14, 1990, through 1997. During that time, he injured his right shoulder twice.

The first injury to his right shoulder, on August 17, 1997, was not work related. It occurred in a flag football game. After sustaining the injury, the plaintiff immediately consulted a physican at New Britain General Hospital to obtain pain relief medication. He did not report for work the following day.

The second injury to the same shoulder, on September 18, 1997, occurred on the work site when the plaintiff was trying to fix a hatchway. He consulted a physician one week later. He notified his supervisor of his injury on September 29, 1997.¹ Despite his injury, he continued to work until October 9, 1997. In December, 1997, the plaintiff underwent surgery to correct the right rotator cuff injury that he had sustained, but the surgery was not successful.

In the course of workers' compensation proceedings, the state accepted the plaintiff's claim for workers' compensation for his work site injury. It signed a voluntary agreement acknowledging that the plaintiff had suffered a 21.5 percent permanent impairment of his right shoulder as the result of his September 18, 1997 injury and that this injury arose out of and in the course of his employment.

The plaintiff then filed an application for disability retirement benefits under General Statutes § 5-169. His eligibility for such benefits depended on his ability to establish that his injury was service connected. General Statutes § 5-192p.

The medical board that considered the plaintiff's application for disability retirement benefits found initially and upon reconsideration that the plaintiff had not shown that his injury was service connected. It noted the plaintiffs prior injury at the football game, his delay in informing his supervisor of his injury at the work site and his performance of his work for several days subsequent to the date of his injury.

The plaintiff tried unsuccessfully to challenge the medical board's decision by way of a direct appeal to the Superior Court. The court held that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction of his case because § 5-169 (c) does not require the medical board to hold a hearing. See Bailey v. Medical Examining Board for State Employee Disability Retirement, 75 Conn. App. 215, 223, 815 A.2d 281 (2003). As the court held, without a requirement for a hearing, an administrative decision is not a contested case, as that term is defined by General Statutes § 4-166 (2), and therefore is not appealable. See General Statutes § 4-166 (3) (A) and (C); Lewis v. Gaming Policy Board, 224 Conn. 693, 699-700, 620 A.2d 780 (1993).

Without seeking appellate review of that dismissal, the plaintiff petitioned the commission for a declaratory ruling that the doctrine of collateral estoppel required the medical board to find that his injury was service connected. The commission decided that it did not have jurisdiction to review the plaintiffs claim on its merits because, in its view, § 5-192p (f) conferred on the medical board the exclusive authority to determine whether the plaintiffs injury was service connected. Accordingly, it issued a declaratory ruling denying the plaintiffs request for disability retirement benefits. The plaintiff then returned to the Superior Court, in the case that is presently before us, to challenge the validity of the declaratory ruling by the commission. This time, the trial court had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal because a declaratory ruling is appealable whether or not it arises in a contested case. General Statutes §§ 4-176 (h) and 4-183.

The trial court upheld the commission's interpretation of the relevant statutes. It held that the commission lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the merits of the decision of the medical board. Accordingly, it rendered a judgment dismissing the plaintiffs appeal.

I JURISDICTION

The plaintiffs principal argument for reversal of the judgment of the trial court is that the court improperly dismissed, on the basis of the commission's lack of subject matter jurisdiction, his claim that the medical board was required, because of collateral estoppel, to find his injury to have been service connected. The trial court held that "the posture of this case as an appeal from a declaratory ruling does not present the opportunity for the frontal attack on the decision of the medical examining board that the plaintiff attempts." We disagree with the court's reasoning.

The plaintiff raises two arguments with respect to his jurisdictional claim. He asserts that the trial court should have addressed the merits of his claim of collateral estoppel because the commission (1) acting in response to a petition for a declaratory ruling, has plenary statutory authority to determine any pension issue presented therein and (2) acting as the ultimate adjudicator of pension rights, has plenary statutory authority to decide an issue of law.

A

The plaintiffs first and broader argument is that, contrary to the view of the trial court, "the analysis remains the same whether the ultimate responsibility for determining disability retirement eligibility rests with the [commission] or with the [medical board]." For present purposes, he does not challenge the ruling that an administrative decision that is not the result of a contested case is not reviewable directly under § 4-166 (3) (A). He maintains instead that such a ruling is reviewable indirectly under §§ 4-176 (h) and 4-166 (3) (B). In his view, his claim of collateral estoppel is entitled to commission review, and then to judicial review, because the commission has plenary authority to consider the merits of any issue raised...