Pasquariello v. Stop and Shop Companies

• Decision Date: 20 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 17595.,17595.
• Citation: 281 Conn. 656,916 A.2d 803
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Earl O. PASQUARIELLO v. STOP AND SHOP COMPANIES, INC., et al.

916 A.2d 803

281 Conn. 656

Earl O. PASQUARIELLO v. STOP AND SHOP COMPANIES, INC., et al.

No. 17595.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued January 4, 2007.

Decided March 20, 2007.

Norman J. Voog, Ridgefield, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Clayton J. Quinn, Fairfield, for the appellees (defendants).

BORDEN, NORCOTT, KATZ, VERTEFEUILLE and ZARELLA, Js.

KATZ, J.

The plaintiff, Earl O. Pasquariello,¹ appeals from the decision of the workers' compensation review board (board) reversing the decision of the workers' compensation commissioner for the seventh district (commissioner), who had concluded that the defendant Stop and Shop Companies, Inc.,² could not reduce the plaintiff's total disability benefits by the amount of his social security old age insurance benefits (social security benefits), as provided under General Statutes (Rev. to 1997) § 31-307(e).³ The plaintiff contends that, contrary to the board's interpretation of § 31-307(e), the legislature did not intend for the social security offset to apply to workers who had returned to the workforce after retiring and drawing social security benefits, and that to interpret the statute otherwise would violate the plaintiff's right to equal protection under the federal and state constitutions. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the board's decision.

The record reveals the following undisputed facts and procedural history. On June 13, 1994, the plaintiff commenced part-time employment with the defendant. Prior to commencing this employment, the plaintiff had begun to receive social security benefits, and he continued to receive these benefits while working for the defendant. On April 26, 1997, the plaintiff sustained a work-related compensable injury to his right knee and back that caused him to be totally disabled. At that time, he was seventy-three years old. The defendant paid for the plaintiff's medical treatment, pursuant to General Statutes § 31-294d, but did not pay the plaintiff any total incapacity benefits. The defendant contended that no such benefits were owed to the plaintiff because it was entitled, under § 31-307(e), to reduce the plaintiff's total disability benefits by the amount of the plaintiff's social security benefits, which apparently were equivalent to, or in excess of, the plaintiff's disability benefits.⁴

The plaintiff filed a claim for total disability benefits, and the commissioner issued an award in favor of the plaintiff, concluding that the legislature did not intend for the social security offset to apply to persons who already had begun to receive social security benefits prior to their employment. The defendant then appealed from the commissioner's decision to the board, and the board reversed the commissioner's decision. It concluded that the text of § 31-307(e) reflected no basis for distinguishing application of the offset depending on whether the receipt of social security benefits predated the employment. The board noted the plaintiff's contention that § 31-307(e) would be unconstitutional if construed to permit the offset to apply under these facts, but recognized that, as an administrative agency, it lacked jurisdiction to reach the constitutional question.⁵ Accordingly, the board sustained the defendant's appeal and reversed the commissioner's decision. This appeal followed.⁶

The plaintiff first claims that the board interpreted § 31-307(e) in a manner that is inconsistent with the purpose of the statute and irrational. The plaintiff asserts that the board's construction is inconsistent with the legislature's intent to reduce disability benefits for persons who have retired from the workforce because, in his case, he had returned to the workforce after retiring and receiving social security benefits. Accordingly, he contends that the legislature intended for the offset to apply only to those persons who received social security benefits after they had commenced their employment and had become totally disabled. The plaintiff further claims that the legislature intended to prevent "double-dipping," specifically, the payment of two benefits that both are intended as wage replacements — social security benefits and disability benefits. He contends that, because he already had been drawing social security benefits before his employment with the defendant, once he commenced that employment, he had two sources of income and therefore would not be double-dipping by drawing both benefits. The plaintiff also claims that interpreting the offset to apply in the present case would violate the equal protection clause under the state and federal constitutions. We reject both the plaintiff's statutory and constitutional claims.

Before turning to the plaintiff's claims, we briefly summarize our decision in Rayhall v. Akim Co., 263 Conn. 328, 819 A.2d 803 (2003), wherein this court interpreted the provision at issue in the present case, and which bears on both of the plaintiff's claims. In Rayhall, the plaintiff suffered a work-related injury for which he initially had received partial incapacity benefits,⁷ and, pursuant to an agreement with his employer, elected to file early, at age sixty-two, for social security benefits. Id., at 333, 819 A.2d 803. The plaintiff's condition thereafter deteriorated, he began to receive total incapacity benefits and his employer claimed that it was entitled to apply the social security offset against those incapacity benefits. Id., at 333-35, 819 A.2d 803. On appeal to this court, the plaintiff claimed that § 31-307(e) violated equal protection because the social security offset applied against total incapacity benefits, but not against partial incapacity benefits. Id., at 341, 819 A.2d 803. We concluded that the statute should be examined under rational basis review; id., at 345, 819 A.2d 803; and that it did not violate equal protection under that standard because, although there was no specific evidence of a legislative intent with respect to the offset, we could conceive of a rational basis for applying the offset only to total incapacity benefits. Id., at 346-52, 819 A.2d 803. We first noted that § 31-307(e) was enacted as part of a comprehensive scheme to reform the Workers' Compensation Act; see Public Acts 1993, No. 93-228, § 16; with the principal goal of cutting employers' costs in maintaining the workers' compensation system. Rayhall v. Akim Co., supra, at 346, 819 A.2d 803. We concluded that it was rational for the legislature to apply the offset only to total incapacity benefits because those benefits were of unlimited duration, whereas partial incapacity benefits were available for a limited duration. Id., at 350-51, 819 A.2d 803. We further concluded that, although incapacity benefits are intended to compensate workers for wage loss resulting from their injuries; id., at 349, 819 A.2d 803; the legislature rationally could decide to reduce wage replacement benefits for workers who have retired from the workforce. Id., at 351, 819 A.2d 803. We then reasoned that, "[b]ecause total disability benefits are of potentially unlimited duration, the legislature rationally could have determined that receipt of old age social security benefits establishes a presumption of retirement. With respect to partial incapacity, by contrast, the presumption of retirement is rebutted by the worker's actual employment. . . ." Id., at 351-52, 819 A.2d 803. Nonetheless, "[w]e recognize[d] that the offset does not provide a precise fit so that it applies only to those workers who, irrespective of their injury, would have retired upon eligibility for social security retirement benefits. Under rational basis review of a facial challenge to the constitutionality of a statute, however, we need not find such a precise fit. . . . [A] statute must be upheld against equal protection challenge if there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 352, 819 A.2d 803. With this background in mind, we turn to the plaintiff's claims in the present case.

I

"Established wisdom counsels us to exercise self-restraint so as to eschew unnecessary determinations of constitutional questions." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Lemon, 248 Conn. 652, 663 n. 15, 731 A.2d 271(1999). Accordingly, we first consider the statutory question, that is, whether the legislature intended for the social security offset in § 31-307(e) to apply to all persons entitled to receive social security benefits concurrently with total incapacity benefits irrespective of when they became entitled to the social security benefits, as the board concluded, or whether the legislature intended for the offset to apply only to those persons who became entitled to social security benefits after they had commenced their employment and then became totally disabled, as the plaintiff contends. As this appeal involves our review of an administrative agency's decision construing a statute, we begin with certain well established principles that guide our analysis.

"We have recognized that [a]n agency's factual and discretionary determinations are to be accorded considerable weight by the courts. . . . Cases that present pure questions of law, however, invoke a broader standard of review than is ordinarily involved in deciding whether, in light of the evidence, the agency has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally or in abuse of its discretion. . . . We have determined, therefore, that the traditional deference accorded to an agency's interpretation of a statutory term is unwarranted when the construction of a statute . . . has not previously been subjected to judicial scrutiny [or to] . . . a governmental agency's time-tested interpretation. . . ." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Sikand v. Wilson-Coker, 276 Conn. 618, 626, 888 A.2d 74 (2006). Although this court previously examined § 31-307(e) in Rayhall v. Akim Co., supra, 263 Conn. at...