Rivera v. I. S. Spencer's Sons, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 November 1966
• Citation: 223 A.2d 808,154 Conn. 162
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Jose L. RIVERA v. I. S. SPENCER'S SONS, INC., et al.

Page 808

223 A.2d 808

154 Conn. 162

Jose L. RIVERA v. I. S. SPENCER'S SONS, INC., et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Nov. 2, 1966.

Donald P. Chernoff, Harford, with whom was Edward S. Pomeranz, Hartford, for appellants (defendants).

Leonard L. Levy, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before KING, C.J., and ALCORN, HOUSE, THIM and RYAN, JJ.

KING, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff, while employed by the named defendant, sustained second- and third- degree burns on his right foot when molten iron ran into his right shoe. It was undisputed that the injury arose in the course of and out of the employment, and that the plaintiff received compensation during his relatively short period of disability. The present controversy is concerned solely with an award of compensation for a period of twenty-five weeks which the commissioner made under the so-called disfigurement provision of our Workmen's Compensation Act. The provision is part of § 31-308 of the General Statutes.

The commissioner found that the claimant had 'a very large scar located on the medial side of the right foot and ankle beginning at a point just above the ankle bone and running down to the bottom of the foot covering a substantial surface, measuring 3 3/4 overall in length and 3 in width'; that '(a) dditional scarring also extended to the bottom of the foot and along the side of the big toe'; and that the scarring was permanent.

The defendant's basic claim is that the disfigurement provision does not authorize an award of compensation for a scar on the foot, as distinguished from one on the lower leg above the foot.

Counsel followed the approved practice in bringing this basic claim to the commissioner's attention at the hearing, and the commissioner in turn followed the approved practice in making a finding adequate for the review of that claim. Northam v. L. E. Bunnell Transportation Co., 118 Conn. 312, 313, 171 A. 837. He also followed the approved practice in including in the written finding and award an explanatory memorandum of decision. Soucier v. Genovese, 151 Conn. 430, 433, 198 A.2d 698, and cases cited.

General Statutes § 31-308, the governing statute, provides that 'the commissioner may award such compensation as he deems just * * * for any serious and permanent disfigurement of the face, neck, head, forearms, hands, upper arms and legs below the knees up to one hundred and four weeks'. Since most of the scar was on the foot, the controlling issue is whether the phrase 'legs below the knees' does or does not include the foot. Section 1-1 of the General Statutes provides that '(i)n the construction of the statutes, words and phrases shall be construed according to the commonly approved usage of the language'. State v. Benson, 153 Conn. 209, 214, 214 A.2d 903; Baker v. City of Norwalk, 152 Conn. 312, 315, 206 A.2d 428, and cases cited.

In applying this rule of construction, we are met at the outset with the problem that the word 'leg', as commonly used, sometimes does, and sometimes does not, include the foot, depending upon the context in which the word 'leg' is used. Thus, if one speaks of the amputation of a leg, it would obviously include the foot. See dictum in Finoia v. Winchester Repeating Arms Co., 130 Conn. 381, 383, 34 A.2d 636. On the other hand, the amputation of a foot would ordinarily not be understood as meaning the amputation of any substantial part of the leg above the ankle joint. If one steps on a sharp object and thereby sustains a puncture injury, it would be commonly described as an injury to the foot rather than an injury to the leg. In common usage, the word 'foot' denotes the portion of the leg below the ankle joint. Webster, Third International Dictionary, p. 884. We do not think that the claim here can be satisfactorily determined solely by the test of common usage. But the historical development and legislative evolution of what is now the disfigurement provision of § 31-308 goes far toward resolving the instant ambiguity in the phrase 'legs below the knees'. McBrien v. Warden, 153 Conn. 320, 323, 216 A.2d 432.

The portion of the statute authorizing an award for disfigurement had its origin in 1939 in the enactment of § 1328e of the 1939 Cumulative Supplement, which amended § 5237 of the 1930 Revision of the General Statutes (providing compensation for partial incapacity) by authorizing an award 'for any serious and permanent disfigurement of the face, neck, head or hands'. In 1943, by the enactment of § 698g of the 1943 Supplement, the disfigurement provision was amended by adding 'forearms' after 'head'. With these amendments (and other amendment unrelated to the disfigurement provision), § 5237 was carried into the 1949 Revision of the General Statutes as § 7431. In Finoia v. Winchester Repeating Arms Co., supra, 130 Conn. 385, 34 A.2d 636, it was held that the addition of the word 'forearms' reinforced the court's conclusion in that case that the word 'hands', under the disfigurement provision, did not include 'forearms'.

Section 7431 of the 1949 Revision became § 31-162 of the 1958 Revision, but it was amended by § 7 of No. 580 of the 1959 Public Acts, which added after the word 'hands' the words 'upper arms and legs below the knees'. The sections of the entire compensation act were rearranged and renumbered in 1961 so that § 31-162, as amended in 1959 and, in a respect immaterial to this appeal, in 1961, is now designated § 31-308.

It is obvious that the course of these various amendments was to increase the portions of the body embraced in the disfigurement...