Piccinim v. Connecticut Light & Power Co

• Decision Date: 16 April 1919
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: PICCINIM et al. v. CONNECTICUT LIGHT & POWER CO.

106 A. 330

93 Conn. 423

PICCINIM et al. v. CONNECTICUT LIGHT & POWER CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 16, 1919

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; William S. Case, Judge.

Proceeding by Clotilde Piccinim and others against the Connecticut Light & Power Company, under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Appeal was taken to the superior court from the finding and award of the compensation commissioner in favor of plaintiff children, but not in favor of decedent's unlawful consort, and reserved on the facts found by the commissioner for advice of the Supreme Court. Advice to render judgment affirming commissioner's award.

Peter Salmon Salvatore Piedmonte, an employé of the defendant, was instantly killed while he was engaged in his work. His average weekly earnings were $25.84. In 1909 the deceased and Clotilde Piccinim, one of the claimants, under an agreement to marry, never fulfilled, began to live together as husband and wife. They continued to so reside together until his death. Three children were born to them during this period. They are joined with the mother as claimants, and are now 8, 6, and 4 years of age respectively. Subsequent to their birth they lived with their parents and were regularly supported by the deceased. The commissioner denied compensation to the mother, and awarded $14 weekly for the period of 312 weeks to the children in equal amounts between them.

William E. Thoms, of Waterbury, for appellant.

Ralph O. Wells, of Hartford, for appellees.

PRENTICE, C.J.

The Compensation Commissioner's award to the three children born of the illicit relations long existing between the deceased and Clotilde Piccinim was made to them as dependents, and the only dependents, of the deceased at the time of his injury and resulting death, and as persons whose dependency was total. It is not contended by any of the parties that the commissioner erred in withholding compensation from the deceased's unlawful consort, and the respondent does not dispute that the finding of facts establishes that if the three children were the deceased's dependents within the meaning of our workmen's compensation statute they stood alone in that relation, and that their dependency was total. The questions by possibility presented by the record thus become reduced to one concerning which the parties stand in opposition, and that is whether or not these children were entitled to be regarded as the deceased's dependents.

Our act as enacted in 1913 defines dependents as meaning and including " members of the injured employé 's family or next of kin who are wholly or partly dependent upon the earnings of the employé at the time of the injury." P. A. 1913 c. 138, § 43. This definition has since remained unchanged, and appears in section 5388 of the Revision of 1918. The three children claimants in the present case satisfy all these statutory qualifications, if so be that they are to be regarded as members of the deceased's family in which they in fact resided.

The word " family" is one of elastic meaning, and is used in a great variety of significations. The wide range of its use is well illustrated by our own decision. In some of its uses the test for determining membership is found in the collective quality of the residence of the persons concerned and the unity of their domestic government and control. In those uses it is said to mean and embrace all the members of a collective body of persons living in one household and under one head and domestic government, and including servants and others as well as parents, children, and kin. Dalton v. Knights of Columbus, 80 Conn. 212, 215, 67 A. 510, 125 Am.St.Rep. 116, 11 Ann. Cas. 568; Cosgrove v Cosgrove, 69 Conn. 416, 422, 38 A. 219; Wood v. Wood, 63 Conn. 324, 327, 28 A. 520; Hart v. Goldsmith, 51 Conn. 479, 480. In other instances regard is had for relationship by blood or otherwise between the different members of the group, as well as to the unity of residence and domestic control. Hart v. Goldsmith, 51 Conn. 479, 480; Dalton v. Knights of Columbus, 80 Conn. 212, 216, 67 A. 510, 125 Am.St.Rep. 116, 11 Ann. Cas. 568. In still other cases the factors of collectivity of residence and unity of headship are ignored, and that of relationship made to furnish the test of membership. Hart v. Goldsmith, 51 Conn. 471, 480; Cosgrove v. Cosgrove, 69 Conn. 416, 422, 38 A. 219; Hoadly v. Wood, 71 Conn. 452, 456, 42 A. 263; Dalton v. Knights of Columbus 80 Conn. 212, 216, 67 A. 510, 125 Am.St.Rep. 116, 11 Ann. Cas. 568. Again it is held that the term may be employed to designate individuals whom it is the right of its head to control and his duties to support. Cheshire v. Burlington, 31 Conn. 326, 329.

But whatever be the accepted meaning of the word as used in the statutory definition under review, the three children claimants will not be excluded from the family group to which the deceased belonged and over which he presided, unless that meaning is one which either directly or indirectly raises a bar of exclusion for them out of their illegitimacy. Had they been born of a lawful union between their father and mother they would be able to satisfy every prerequisite of family membership which even the most restricted definition would embody, and to meet every requirement contained in any or all of them, whether it be of residence, relationship, duty to support, or right to control. They belonged to the collective group living in the household which the deceased maintained and of which he was the head; they would under the conditions named have been related to him by the closest possible ties of blood, and his right to control and duty to support them would have been unquestioned. The question before us, therefore, comes down to this: Does their illegitimacy ipso facto forbid that they be regarded as members of the deceased's family for the purpose of receiving compensation?

The act contains no express provision to that effect or language which, under accepted rules of construction, would lead to such interpretation. If, for practical application, it should be judicially said that such prohibition exists, it must be for the reason that their presence in the family group was in violation of law, or that their inclusion therein for the purposes of the act would not be consonant with a sound public policy, either upon moral grounds or in the matter of justice to employers, or that as illegitimates they should be penalized for their illegitimacy by being denied the rights and benefits accorded to all others under our Workmen's Compensation legislation.

It is of course, true that one may not successfully assert a claim to membership in a family group and thereby secure benefits provided by the law whose presence in that group is in violation of law. Scott's Case, 117 Me. 436, 104 A. 794, 796; Armstrong v. Ind. Com., 161 Wis. 530, 531, 154 N.W. 844. That is the position in which the mother of these children found herself, and the commissioner has for that reason properly refused to recognize her as belonging to the deceased's family and denied her claim to share in an award of compensation. Gron v. Mass. Employés Ins. Co., 2 Mass. Ind. Acc. Board, 736, 741; Bustamente v. Gate City Ice, etc., Co., 2 Cal. Ind. Acc. Com....