Stec v. Raymark Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 April 2009
• Docket Number: No. 29346.,29346.
• Parties: Richard STEC et al. v. RAYMARK INDUSTRIES, INC., et al.
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals

968 A.2d 960

114 Conn.App. 81

Richard STEC et al. v. RAYMARK INDUSTRIES, INC., et al.

No. 29346.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued December 3, 2008.

Decided April 28, 2009.

J. Sarah Posner, assistant attorney general, with whom were Philip M. Schulz, assistant attorney general, and, on the brief, Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and William J. McCullough, assistant attorney general, for the appellant (defendant second injury fund).

Lucas D. Strunk, Glastonbury, for the appellee (defendant Hartford Insurance Group).

Eric L. Sussman, Hartford, for the appellee (defendant General Reinsurance Corporation).

Christopher Meisenkothen, New Haven, for the appellee (plaintiff June Stec).

Joseph J. Passaretti, Jr., with whom, on the brief, was Eric W. Schoenberg, for the appellee (defendant Connecticut Insurance Guaranty Association).

David J. Weil, Cheshire, for the appellee (defendant National Union Fire Insurance Company).

GRUENDEL, LAVINE and WEST, Js.

GRUENDEL, J.

This case calls on us to address an unresolved area of workers' compensation procedure. Specifically, we must determine whether the filing of an appeal from the decision of a compensation commissioner to the workers' compensation review board (board) outside of the statutory time period for filing such an appeal deprives the board of subject matter jurisdiction. Put another way, we must decide whether an appellee can waive timeliness of filing a workers' compensation appeal.

In Dechio v. Raymark Industries, Inc., 114 Conn.App. 58, 968 A.2d 450 (2009), also decided today, we held that a party to a workers' compensation action that has participated fully in the proceedings that resulted in the issuance of a finding and award by the commissioner must appeal to the board from that finding and award rather than from any subsequent order. Because the appeal to the board in Dechio was filed more than twenty days after the applicable finding and award was issued, we concluded that the appeal was not timely under General Statutes § 31-301(a) and affirmed the board's dismissal of the appeal. The present case involves the same defendants and the same underlying issue — the appellant filed its appeal outside of the twenty day period set forth in § 31-301(a). This case differs from Dechio, however, in that the appellee in the present case did not file a timely motion to dismiss the appeal. But for this difference, the two cases would command the same result.

Because there was no timely motion to dismiss the appeal, we must determine whether the time limitation on filing an appeal set forth in § 31-301(a) implicates the board's subject matter jurisdiction to hear the appeal or if that time limitation is waivable by the parties. The board concluded that the timeliness of an appeal does implicate its subject matter jurisdiction and thus dismissed the untimely appeal for want of jurisdiction. We disagree with the board's holding and conclude that failure to file an appeal from a commissioner's finding and award in a timely manner does not deprive the board of subject matter jurisdiction. We therefore reverse the decision of the board dismissing the appeal.

The facts underlying this case are largely undisputed. In 1986, the plaintiffs, Richard Stec, now deceased, and June Stec, his surviving spouse, filed a workers' compensation claim alleging that the decedent contracted lung cancer as a result of exposure to asbestos during the course of his employment with the defendant Raymark Industries, Inc. (Raymark).¹ Raymark has been in bankruptcy proceedings since 1986, and the defendant second injury fund (fund)² was cited in as a party to the workers' compensation claim because of its potential liability pursuant to General Statutes § 31-355.

Hearings were held before the compensation commissioner between 2002 and 2005, and on October 3, 2005, the commissioner issued a finding and award. In that finding and award, the commissioner found, inter alia, that Richard Stec "sustained a compensable work-related lung injury as a result of being exposed to asbestos while working for [Raymark]," and that such injury led to his disability and ultimate death. The commissioner also found that he was "precluded from issuing an award against the second injury fund ... because an order must first issue against [Raymark] as the employer of record. An order cannot issue against [Raymark] because of its bankruptcy status." The finding and award went on to indicate that if relief from the automatic bankruptcy stay were to be issued by the Bankruptcy Court, the commissioner would entertain requests for orders against both Raymark and the fund.³

Subsequent to that October 3, 2005 finding and award, the Bankruptcy Court issued relief from the automatic stay in the Raymark bankruptcy case. Thereafter, on September 29, 2006, the commissioner issued a new finding and award ordering Raymark to pay "all the chapter 568 benefits noted in the October 3, 2005 finding and award." On October 25, 2006, the commissioner issued an order to the fund for payment of the benefits under the October 3, 2005 finding and award.

The fund appealed to the board on November 13, 2006. National Union Fire Insurance Co., a defendant and appellee in this case, filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on December 5, 2006, claiming that the fund was required to appeal to the board within twenty days of the October 3, 2005 finding and award. In response, the fund argued that the appeal was timely, as it was filed within twenty days of the issuance of the October 25, 2006 order. It also argued that the motion to dismiss the appeal was filed outside of the ten day period in which such motions must be filed pursuant to Practice Book § 66-8, thereby waiving the issue of timeliness. The board dismissed the appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that the appeal was filed late and that a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction may be filed at any time. The fund appeals to this court from that dismissal.

In light of our holding in Dechio v. Raymark Industries, Inc., supra, 114 Conn.App. at 58, 968 A.2d 450, the dispositive issue on appeal is whether the failure to file an appeal to the workers' compensation review board within the twenty day period set forth in § 31-301(a) deprives the board of its subject matter jurisdiction or whether timely filing may be waived by the parties. "Subject matter jurisdiction is the power of the court to hear and determine cases of the general class to which the proceedings in question belong." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Ambroise v. William Raveis Real Estate, Inc., 226 Conn. 757, 764-65, 628 A.2d 1303 (1993). "[A] subject matter jurisdictional defect may not be waived ... [or jurisdiction] conferred by the parties, explicitly or implicitly.... [T]he question of subject matter jurisdiction is a question of law...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Daly, 111 Conn.App. 397, 401, 960 A.2d 1040 (2008). Once the board's subject matter jurisdiction over an appeal is questioned, either by a party or by the board itself, the jurisdictional question must be resolved before the board may address the substantive issues presented by the appeal. See id.; Cleveland v. U.S. Printing Ink, Inc., 21 Conn.App. 610, 612, 575 A.2d 257 (1990), aff'd, 218 Conn. 181, 588 A.2d 194 (1991). "The question of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Remax Right Choice v. Aryeh, 100 Conn.App. 373, 377, 918 A.2d 976 (2007).

These established precepts indicate that if filing a late appeal from the compensation commissioner's finding and award implicates the board's subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal, then the timeliness of the appellee's motion to dismiss would be immaterial. If, conversely, the failure to file a timely appeal does not implicate subject matter jurisdiction, the board would have discretion to hear a late appeal if it is not the subject of a timely motion to dismiss. This issue is complicated by decades of imprecise and inconsistent precedent and by numerous amendments to the statute governing the appeal period. As such, we must analyze the case law and the history of the statute to resolve the question before us.

I HISTORY AND PRECEDENT

The General Assembly passed Connecticut's first workers' compensation statute in 1913. Public Acts 1913, No. 138. At that time in our history, "[t]he almost universal introduction of machinery, with its peculiar dangers" necessitated a change in the common-law approach to compensating injured employees. Report, Conn. State Comm'n on Compensation for Industrial Accidents, p. 3 (1912). The pressure to introduce a comprehensive workers' compensation statute was part of a growing movement. Jurisdictions around the country were passing workers' compensation legislation for the first time — substantially all statutes on the subject in the United States had been in effect for fewer than three years. Id., at p. 2. "Under the statute, the employee surrenders his right to bring a common law action against the employer, thereby limiting the employer's liability to the statutory amount.... In return, the employee is compensated for his or her losses without having to prove liability.... The intention of the framers of the [Workers Compensation Act, General Statutes § 31-275 et seq. (act)] was to establish a speedy, effective and inexpensive method for determining claims for compensation." (Citation omitted.) Doe v. Yale University, 252 Conn. 641, 672, 748 A.2d 834 (2000). Although the act has been amended and rewritten on numerous occasions; see, e.g., Public Acts 1961, No. 491; Public Acts 1972, No. 108; Public Acts 1979, No. 79-540; Public Acts 2001, No. 01-22; much of its purpose, spirit and language, particularly in the area of appeals from a commissioner's finding and award, have remained largely unchanged.

Section twenty-seven of the original 1913...