St. Pierre v. Morin Brick Co.

• Decision Date: 06 April 1981
• Citation: 427 A.2d 492
• Parties: Norman ST. PIERRE v. MORIN BRICK CO. et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 492

427 A.2d 492

Norman ST. PIERRE v. MORIN BRICK CO. et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued March 4, 1981.

Decided April 6, 1981.

Gauvreau & Thibeault, N. Paul Gauvreau (orally), Lewiston, for plaintiff.

Norman & Hanson, Theodore H. Kirchner (orally), Portland, for defendants.

Before McKUSICK, C. J., and WERNICK, GODFREY, NICHOLS, GLASSMAN and CARTER, JJ.

McKUSICK, Chief Justice.

In this workers' compensation case the employee, Norman St. Pierre, appeals from the pro forma judgment of the Superior Court (Androscoggin County) affirming the Workers' Compensation Commission's denial of the employee's petition for an award of compensation. The commissioner who decided the case below found as fact that St. Pierre suffered a back injury on May 29, 1979, but that "(t)here is no evidence which suggests that the employer was either told or otherwise learned of the work-related nexus with this injury." The commissioner accordingly held that the employee's claim was barred by his failure to give the 30-day notice required by 39 M.R.S.A. § 63, ¹ and that his default was not excused by independent knowledge of the employer to satisfy 39 M.R.S.A. § 64. We deny the employee's appeal.

Before this court the employee concedes that he never gave the section 63 notice to the employer of his injury, but contends that his failure to give the required notice is in any event excused under section 64. By the terms of the latter section, want of the 30-day notice "shall not be a bar to proceedings under this Act if it be shown that the employer or his agent had knowledge of the injury." The employee argues that the commissioner could and should have inferred section 64 knowledge on the part of the employer from record evidence that the employee had no back trouble prior to his transfer to a job as a "dumper" in May 1979, that the dumper job was physically demanding, and that his back trouble occurred soon after he undertook that more arduous job.

The commissioner below made his findings of fact solely upon the basis of a transcript of testimony taken before another commissioner and other written evidence. For that reason, the employee argues that the Law Court is in as good a position as the commissioner to make its own findings of fact as to the knowledge of the employer for purposes of section 64 excuse. Whatever intimations of support some earlier opinions of this court might give that argument, we have recently emphatically rejected it. As we said in Dunton v. Eastern Fine Paper, Me., 423 A.2d 512, 517 (1980):

(R)eview over fact finding by the Commission is narrow, requiring our deference to the Commissioner's conclusions if they are supported by competent evidence. See Wing v. Cornwall Industries, Me., 418 A.2d 177 (1980). It would be anomalous to adhere to a supposed exception to this standard simply because the parties, for convenience, rely upon written evidence For the guidance of the bar, we disavow any suggestion that a trial de novo may be had on appeal in workers' compensation cases.

As in Dunton, we decline the invitation to review the evidence independently. The Dunton rule applies to any factfindings of the commissioner, whether they relate to the merits of the petition at hand or to a preliminary question of notice as in the case at bar. Even if "there may be evidence supporting a different result, we (on appeal) are limited to determining whether the record contains competent evidence...