Sapko v. State
Decision Date | 12 June 2012 |
Docket Number | SC 18680 |
Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Parties | CHRISTINE L. SAPKO v. STATE OF CONNECTICUT ET AL. |
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The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears on the Commission on Official Legal Publications Electronic Bulletin Board Service and in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut.Rogers, C. J., and Norcott, Palmer, Zarella, McLachlan and Harper, Js.
John J. Quinn, with whom, on the brief, was John J. Quinn, Jr., for the appellant (plaintiff).
Lawrence G. Widem, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, former attorney general, and Philip M. Schulz, assistant attorney general, for the appellee (named defendant).
The plaintiff, Christine L. Sapko, appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court, which affirmed the decision of the workers' compensation review board (board) upholding the decision of the workers' compensation commissioner for the eighth district (commissioner) denying her claim for survivor's benefits pursuant to General Statutes § 31-3061 of the Workers' Compensation Act (act), General Statutes § 31-275 et seq. The plaintiff had sought survivor's benefits following the death of her husband, Anthony S. Sapko (decedent), an employee of the named defendant, the state of Connecticut.2 The commissioner denied the plaintiff's claim following the commissioner's determination that the decedent's simultaneous ingestion of excessive quantities of Oxycodone, which had been prescribed for compensable work injuries, and Seroquel, which had been prescribed for an unrelated case of major depression, constituted a superseding cause of his death and, therefore, that the decedent's compensable work injuries were not the proximate cause of his death. After the board upheld the commissioner's decision, the plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming that the board incorrectly had concluded that the commissioner's application of the superseding cause doctrine was proper in light of Barry v. Quality Steel Products, Inc., 263 Conn. 424, 446, 820 A.2d 258 (2003), which abrogated that doctrine in most tort contexts.3 The Appellate Court agreed with the plaintiff that the board incorrectly had concluded that the superseding cause doctrine applied to the present case but concluded that this impropriety was harmless because the record otherwise supported the board's determination that the commissioner properly had applied the law to the facts in deciding the issue of proximate cause. See Sapko v. State, 123 Conn. App. 18, 26, 30, 1 A.3d 250 (2010). We granted the plaintiff's petition for certification to appeal limited to the following issue: ''Did the Appellate Court properly uphold the determination of the compensation review board that the compensable work injuries were not the proximate cause of the decedent's death?'' Sapko v. State, 298 Conn. 923, 4 A.3d 1229 (2010).
We conclude, contrary to the predicate determination of the Appellate Court, that the board correctly concluded that the superseding cause doctrine applies to certain cases under the act and, further, that the commissioner's finding that superseding events broke the chain of proximate causation between the decedent's compensable work injuries and his death constituted a proper application of the law to the facts. We also reject the plaintiff's claim that the commissioner's finding is incompatible with our statement in Birnie v. Electric Boat Corp., 288 Conn. 392, 953 A.2d 28 (2008), that an injured employee is entitled to recovery underthe act if he can demonstrate that his employment contributed to the injury ''in more than a de minimus way.'' Id., 413. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court, albeit on the basis of different reasoning.
The facts, as found by the commissioner and accepted by the board, are set forth in the opinion of the Appellate Court: ''The [plaintiff] is the dependent spouse of [the decedent]. She and the decedent were the parents of two minor children. On August 18, 2006, the decedent died. The decedent's cause of death was the result of multiple drug toxicity due to the interaction of excessive doses of Oxycodone and Seroquel . . . . In addition to identifying the cause of death as multiple drug toxicity, the medical examiner's report also indicated that the nature of the decedent's death was an accident and not suicide. . . .
''Until the time of his death, the decedent was employed as a correction officer for the state of Connecticut. The decedent's employment with the state began December 8, 1995, and followed his twenty-one year tenure as [a] police officer for the city of New Britain.
''In the course of his employment as a correction officer, the decedent experienced four incidents [that] gave rise to claims for workers' compensation benefits. [These incidents occurred on February 13, 2001, September 25, 2005, December 10, 2005, and May 16, 2006.] Following the May 16, 2006 incident, the decedent remained out of work due to a compensable back injury. Between March 15, 2005, [and] August 1, 2006, the decedent was treated for back pain by . . . Mark Thimineur [a physician with] the Comprehensive Pain and Headache Treatment Center, LLC. During the period of this treatment the decedent was prescribed various medications. The prescribed drugs included: Oxycodone, Zanaflex, Kadian, Celebrex, Roxicodone, Avinza, Lidoderm patches and Duragesic. . . . The record before the [commissioner] reflected that the Comprehensive Pain and Headache Treatment Center, LLC, counseled the decedent on the proper use of the drugs prescribed for pain control and required the decedent to participate in a controlled substances agreement. . . .
'4 (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Sapko v. State, supra, 123 Conn. App. 21-23.
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