Kluttz v. Howard, 14680

• Decision Date: 01 February 1994
• Docket Number: No. 14680,14680
• Citation: 636 A.2d 816,228 Conn. 401
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Charles Lee KLUTTZ, v. Glenn HOWARD et al.

Page 816

636 A.2d 816

228 Conn. 401

Charles Lee KLUTTZ, v. Glenn HOWARD et al.

No. 14680.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 1, 1993.

Decided Feb. 1, 1994.

Michael J. Belzer, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were William J. McCullough, Asst. Atty. Gen., and, on the brief, Richard Blumenthal, Atty. Gen., for appellant (defendant Second Injury and Compensation Assurance Fund).

Robert M. Fitzgerald, Litchfield, for appellee (plaintiff).

Clifford Davis, West Hartford, filed a brief as amicus curiae.

Before PETERS, C.J., and BORDEN, BERDON, PALMER and FRANCIS X. HENNESSY, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

The sole issue in this appeal is whether our Workers' Compensation Act (act) ¹ applies to an out-of-state nonresident employee of an out-of-state employer who sustains an employment-related injury as a result of an accident in Connecticut. In considering this issue, we must decide whether to revisit and overrule our recent decision in Cleveland v. U.S. Printing Ink, Inc., 218 Conn. 181, 588 A.2d 194 (1991). The defendant Second Injury and Compensation Assurance Fund (Fund) appealed to the Appellate Court ² from the decision of the compensation review division (review division) that affirmed the finding and award of the workers' compensation commissioner (commissioner) on the plaintiff's claim for workers' compensation benefits. We transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c). We affirm the decision of the review division.

The relevant facts are as follows. The plaintiff was a truck driver whose residence was in North Carolina. He was employed by the defendant Glenn Howard, doing business as Southland Distributors, a North Carolina company having an office in North Carolina but not in Connecticut. The plaintiff's duties as a truck operator required him to pick up and deliver produce in numerous states and Canada. The employer did not carry workers' compensation insurance.

In January, 1983, while in the course of his employment and operating a truck owned by his employer, the plaintiff was involved in an accident on Route I-95 in Stratford as he was approaching a toll booth. As a result of the accident, the plaintiff sustained serious injuries and was hospitalized, first in Bridgeport and then in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The plaintiff filed a workers' compensation claim in Connecticut. ³ The commissioner found that the plaintiff had suffered a total temporary disability for more than one year, had permanent significant scarring of his body, and had sustained some permanent partial disability. The commissioner, thus, ordered the Fund to pay various allowed medical bills, temporary total disability benefits, specific benefits for various scars on the plaintiff's body and specific permanent disability benefits for injuries causally connected to the motor vehicle accident as determined at a future hearing upon the request of either party. Implicit within the commissioner's finding and award was the conclusion that the commissioner had jurisdiction over the claim of the plaintiff for his injuries while in Connecticut.

The Fund appealed the finding and award to the review division, asserting that the commissioner had improperly determined that he had jurisdiction over the plaintiff's claim and had improperly denied the Fund's motion to correct various paragraphs of the finding and award. ⁴ The review division affirmed the finding and award of the commissioner, stating that, "[i]n the instant matter there is no question that Connecticut is the place where the injury occurred. Thus, under the principles of stare decisis we are bound to follow Cleveland." Under Cleveland, the commissioner had jurisdiction over the plaintiff's claim because the plaintiff's injury had occurred in this state.

On appeal, the Fund contends that the review division improperly affirmed the commissioner's conclusion that he had jurisdiction in the circumstances of this case. The Fund emphasizes that the plaintiff was a North Carolina truck driver, who simply happened to be injured in Connecticut although he worked for a North Carolina employer, who did not carry workers' compensation insurance. ⁵ We disagree with the Fund's contention.

In Cleveland v. U.S. Printing Ink, Inc., supra, we directly addressed the question of the applicability of Connecticut's act to an out-of-state nonresident employee of an out-of-state employer who is injured in the course of employment while in Connecticut. After full briefing and argument, this court, en banc, held that "[t]he remedial purpose of our Workers' Compensation Act supports application of its provisions in cases where an injured employee seeks an award of benefits and Connecticut is the place of the injury, the place of the employment contract or the place of the employment relation." (Emphasis added.) Id., 218 Conn. at 195, 588 A.2d 194. We see no reason to revisit this determination. Stare decisis, although not an end in itself, serves the important function of preserving stability and certainty in the law. Accordingly, "a court should not overrule its earlier decisions unless the most cogent reasons and inescapable logic require it. Maltbie, Conn.App.Proc., p. 226." Herald Publishing Co. v. Bill, 142 Conn. 53, 62, 111 A.2d 4 (1955); see also, State v. Somerville, 214 Conn. 378, 384-85, 572 A.2d 944 (1990); White v. Burns, 213 Conn. 307, 335-36, 567 A.2d 1195 (1990). This is not such a case.

Our decision not to reexamine Cleveland is reinforced by legislative changes that will limit its precedential value in future cases. In its January, 1993 session, the General Assembly amended the act to exclude from the definition of employee "any person who is not a resident of this state but is injured in this state during the course of his employment, unless such person (I) works for an employer who has a place of employment or a business facility located in this state at which such person spends at least fifty per cent of his employment time, or (II) works for an employer pursuant to an employment contract to be performed primarily in this state." Public Acts 1993, No. 93-228, § 1(9)(B)(vi). ⁶ Jesse M. Frankl, commissioner and chairman of the workers' compensation commission, commented in legislative hearings on the significance of this change in the governor's proposal to amend the act. ⁷ He informed the labor and public employees committee of the General Assembly that the proposal added "a new provision that restricts nonresidents from receiving workers' compensation benefits if they are employed by an out-of-state employer, or if the contract of employment is out-of-state, and that the only thing that occurs within the state is that they had an accident in the state. This would be an adoption of the minority opinion in the decision of Cleveland vs. the United States Printing, which is 218 Conn. 181, also the decision known as the Clerk's decision. That was a 4 to 3 decision, and this provision would adopt the minority position which would enable us to exclude a mere passing through the state as a provision of receiving workers compensation benefits." Conn. Joint Standing Committee Hearings, Labor and Public Employees 1993 Sess., pp. 1210-11. During the debate on the floor of the Senate, Senator Michael P. Meotti, explaining the provisions of the bill, stated that "[t]he [workers' compensation] bill narrows compensability standards for ... non-residents." 36 S.Proc., Pt. 11, 1993 Sess., p. 3934.

"[O]ur usual presumption [is] that, in enacting a statute, the legislature intended a change in existing law.... This presumption, like any other, may be rebutted by contrary evidence of the legislative intent in the particular case. An amendment which in effect construes and clarifies a prior statute must be accepted as the legislative declaration of the meaning of the original act." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Shelton v. Commissioner of Environmental Protection, 193 Conn. 506, 513-14, 479 A.2d 208 (1984); Shortt v. New Milford Police Department, 212 Conn. 294, 303, 562 A.2d 7 (1989); Vartuli v. Sotire, 192 Conn. 353, 364 n. 12, 472 A.2d 336 (1984). The statutory amendment of the definition of "employee" and the pertinent legislative history, however, are not sufficient to rebut the usual presumption and to evince a clear intent on the part of the legislature to enact a clarification of, rather than a change in, Connecticut's workers' compensation law. See Kinney v. State, 213 Conn. 54, 66, 566 A.2d 670 (1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 898, 111 S.Ct. 251, 112 L.Ed.2d 209 (1990).

We conclude, therefore, that, until the 1993 amendment of the definition of "employee" in the act to exclude out-of-state nonresident employees of out-of-state employers who are injured in the state, the interpretation of the act that we announced in Cleveland was proper.

The judgment of the review board is affirmed.

In this opinion BORDEN and FRANCIS X. HENNESSY, JJ., concurred.

BERDON, J., concurs in the result.

PALMER, Associate Justice, concurring.

I concur in the result. I write separately, however, to express my disagreement with the choice of laws principle adopted in Cleveland v. U.S. Printing Ink, Inc., 218 Conn. 181, 588 A.2d 194 (1991).

I do not believe that the legislature intended that the Second Injury and Compensation Assurance Fund (Fund) be available to compensate an out-of-state nonresident employee of an out-of-state trucking company for injuries to the employee resulting from a motor vehicle accident in Connecticut. In such circumstances, the only basis for compensating the plaintiff from the Fund is the happenstance that the accident occurred in this state. Application of the sensible choice of laws approach suggested for workers' compensation cases by Justice Shea in his dissent in Cleveland, whereby we would apply the law of the state with the most significant relationship to the contract of...