Kenyon v. Swift Service Corporation

• Decision Date: 07 April 1936
• Citation: 184 A. 643,121 Conn. 274
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: KENYON v. SWIFT SERVICE CORPORATION et al.

184 A. 643

121 Conn. 274

KENYON v. SWIFT SERVICE CORPORATION et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 7, 1936

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; John A. Cornell Judge.

Error and cause remanded, with directions.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, BANKS, AVERY, and BROWN JJ.

William L. Hadden and Clarence A. Hadden, both of New Haven (Daniel Pouzzner, of New Haven, on the brief), for appellants.

H. Allen Barton, of Greenwich, for appellee.

AVERY Judge.

The employer-respondent conducts a cleaning and pressing service in Greenwich, where the claimant was employed. On August 8, 1933, cleaning fluid, composed mainly of carbon tetra-chloride and used in washers, was spilled on the floor. It was the claimant's contention that in the course of her employment she inhaled the fumes from the liquid which had been spilled and was caused thereby to become ill; and that as a result of her illness so caused, an infection of the urinary tract subsequently developed whereby she was forced to expend a large sum for medical and hospital services, and was totally incapacitated from the date of the injury until the latter part of February, 1934. She brought her claim for compensation before the commissioner for the Fourth district who, after hearings, dismissed her claim. His action was based on the following conclusions: (1) That the claimant was not suffering from gas poisoning; (2) that her illness on August 8, 1933, was merely coincident with her employment and was in no way connected with the work she was doing for the respondent-employer; and (3) that she received no injury " arising out of and in the course of her employment." The plaintiff appealed to the superior court and moved the commissioner to correct his finding by finding many subordinate facts and by striking out findings claimed unsupported by the evidence or inconsistent with the subordinate facts. The commissioner refused to correct the finding or to pass upon the merits of the motion. The plaintiff appealed to the superior court and assigned error in the refusal of the commissioner to correct the finding and in that the facts found afford insufficient basis for review of the commissioner's conclusions. The superior court corrected the finding by striking out four paragraphs thereof and adding forty-two paragraphs thereto, and remanded the case to the commissioner for the taking of further testimony and for further findings of fact on matters not found by the superior court. From this judgment, the defendant-employer appealed.

The record discloses that there were two ultimate questions of fact to be determined by the commissioner: (1) Was the claimant caused to be sick by the inhalation of fumes from the spilled liquid; and, if so, did the injury arise out of and in the course of her employment; and (2) was an infection of the urinary tract, which was the major part of her disability, caused by medical treatment made necessary by the gas poisoning, or did it arise from a cause having no connection with the injury, namely, an infection of the tract caused by calculi? The finding of the commissioner was brief and to the effect that the claimant did not come in contact with the spilled liquid, and that her sickness was in no way connected with the inhalation of the carbon tetra-chloride gas. He made no finding as to the cause of the infection of the urinary tract.

The motion to correct the commissioner's finding sought to add ninety-two paragraphs showing in detail how the claimant was affected, the nature and character of the gas to which she was exposed, its effect upon her, the details of her sickness, and of the infection of the urinary tract. The purpose of these corrections evidently was to substantiate the claim that the only reasonable conclusion from the finding as corrected would be that she was injured while in the course of her employment by inhaling the fumes of the carbon tetra-chloride, and that her illness and subsequent disability were casually connected with this injury. With her motion to correct, the claimant filed a transcript of the entire evidence indicating by references in the motion the particular parts of the testimony which counsel considered applicable to each paragraph of the corrections asked, and claiming that the entire testimony was necessary because the commissioner had overruled practically all of the claimant's contentions of fact, except that the claimant was employed and that liquid was spilled upon the floor; and claiming also that the entire evidence was so inextricably connected that it was not practicable to attempt to chop it up and separate it and file extracts therefrom separately applicable to each paragraph of the proposed finding. On the ground that thereby the claimant had failed to comply with the rule. Practice Book 1934, p. 81, § 259, the commissioner refused to act upon the motion to correct, but certified the transcript of evidence to the superior court.

The procedure for the correction of a finding of a compensation commissioner is outlined in Atwood v. Connecticut Light &...