Vinal v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd.

• Decision Date: 25 January 1982
• Citation: 430 N.E.2d 440,13 Mass.App.Ct. 85
• Parties: John VINAL v. CONTRIBUTORY RETIREMENT APPEAL BOARD et al. 1
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 440

430 N.E.2d 440

13 Mass.App.Ct. 85

John VINAL v. CONTRIBUTORY RETIREMENT APPEAL BOARD et al. ¹

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Argued Nov. 6, 1981.

Decided Jan. 25, 1982.

Joseph L. Doherty, Jr., Boston (Robert B. Gould, Boston, with him) for plaintiff.

John P. Donohue, Jr., for intervener, submitted a brief.

Before HALE, C. J., and GRANT and GREANEY, JJ.

HALE, Chief Justice.

This action was brought in the Superior Court pursuant to G.L. c. 30A, § 14, for a review of an adjudication made by the defendant Contributory Retirement Appeal Board (appeal board) under the provisions of G.L. c. 32, § 16(4). That decision upheld a decision of the defendant-intervener Middlesex County retirement board (county board) denying the application of the plaintiff for an accidental disability retirement allowance. Both the appeal board and the county board appeal from a judgment in the Superior Court setting aside the decision of the county board and ordering it to approve the application. We remand the case to allow the appeal board to revise its decision to conform to the dictates of G.L. c. 30A, § 11(8). Because this case also raises an apparently novel issue concerning the deference that the appeal board should give to the subsidiary findings of a hearings officer, we address that issue as well.

The plaintiff was employed by Middlesex County as a correction officer at the Billerica house of correction. After suffering his third heart attack, he applied to the county board for a disability retirement allowance. On February 28, 1975, a medical panel convened pursuant to G.L. c. 32, §§ 6(3) and 7(1), certified that the plaintiff was totally disabled and that his disability was "such as might be the natural and proximate result of the accident or hazard undergone on account of which retirement is claimed." Thereafter the county board, citing the "available medical evidence," denied the application.

The plaintiff then sought review of the county board's determination by the appeal board. As required by G.L. c. 32, § 16(4), as amended through St.1977, c. 363A, § 53, the appeal board assigned the appeal to the division of hearings officers (DHO) for a hearing. The plaintiff's appeal was heard by a hearings officer on January 25, 1978. The evidence presented to the hearings officer at that time included the testimony of the plaintiff and his supervisor at the time of his third heart attack and twenty documentary exhibits. We summarize that evidence.

The plaintiff testified that he began his employment with the Middlesex County department of correction in 1958 on a part-time basis. He became a full-time correction officer in 1960. From 1960 until his retirement, he steadily advanced in the correction department, becoming a training officer in 1967 or 1968, moving into personnel sometime thereafter, and later becoming personnel manager. At some point, plaintiff assumed responsibility for Billerica's furlough program and was given the title of furlough administrator.

The plaintiff worked under the direct supervision of a William Quealy for approximately the last two years that he was employed by the correction department. His responsibilities during that period frequently required him to leave the prison grounds, and, while he regularly informed Quealy of his plans, he often left the prison on his own. The plaintiff further testified that he never used his own transportation for these trips.

The plaintiff also testified at length concerning his recurring heart problems. He suffered his first heart attack on May 7, 1972, and stated that it had resulted from his efforts to quell a riot at Billerica approximately one month earlier. The plaintiff's second heart attack occurred on March 16, 1974, immediately following his involvement in another prison riot in which he had forcibly pulled several inmates from a smoke-filled cell. Both attacks resulted in the plaintiff's hospitalization and prolonged absences from work. He stated that he received some workmen's compensation benefits during both those absences.

The plaintiff returned to his job approximately six weeks after his second heart attack. Shortly thereafter Quealy assigned him the responsibility of developing a prison industries program at Billerica. Generally, this program was aimed at attracting private industry to set up machinery inside the institution in order to provide inmates with income and job training. Among the various problems raised by the program and discussed by Quealy with the plaintiff were finding suitable industrial participants and resolving insurance questions which would arise once an acceptable business partner was found.

In order to investigate the feasibility of the proposed program, the plaintiff, during the summer of 1974, wrote to many penal institutions around the country requesting information on similar programs. In addition, the plaintiff and Quealy made a number of trips to other correctional institutions and to area industries to examine similar programs and to search for potential business partners. The plaintiff stated that he discussed the insurance problems associated with the program with at least one of these businesses.

Efforts to develop the prison industries program were generally unsuccessful. The plaintiff had been unable to acquire any concrete information on analogous programs already in operation in other institutions. Similarly, he and Quealy had failed to stimulate interest among any area businesses.

Despite the lack of interest in the prison industries program among area businesses, the plaintiff, on September 10, 1974, decided to go to Boston to discuss the program's insurance aspects with his brother-in-law, an insurance executive. Early that morning he located Quealy at the prison and informed him of his plans. Quealy responded only by asking the plaintiff to pick up some books concerning prison industries at the Federal bookstore. The plaintiff had never visited his brother-in-law at his place of business prior to that date.

The plaintiff went to Boston. As was his regular practice, he took a police cruiser into East Cambridge and from there caught the subway into Government Center. While on the subway, he began to experience what were by then familiar symptoms of oncoming heart problems and took a nitroglycerine tablet to alleviate them. The pain persisted as the plaintiff walked to the Federal bookstore to pick up the books for Quealy and as he walked to his brother-in-law's office.

Despite his physical discomfort, the plaintiff met with his brother-in-law as scheduled. During their meeting, which extended through lunch at a local men's club, they discussed both the insurance problems of the prison industries program and possible sources of suitable equipment for the program. The plaintiff's discomfort continued to increase, and sometime after 1:30 P.M. he asked his brother-in-law to find someone to drive him home. Rather than going home, however, this ride ended at St. John's Hospital in Lowell, where the plaintiff was admitted and diagnosed as having suffered a third heart attack.

The plaintiff spent a month in the hospital following that third attack. Several weeks after his discharge, he experienced additional pain and was readmitted to the hospital. These complications ultimately required open heart surgery. After a final attempt to return to work in December, 1974, the plaintiff retired from the department of correction. Since that time he has been under regular medical supervision and remains unable to engage in any significant physical activity.

The second witness testifying at the DHO hearing was William Quealy. He stated that he supervised the plaintiff from some time in 1971 until his retirement and that he had asked the plaintiff to look into the prison industries program shortly after the plaintiff returned to work following his second heart attack. In making that request he specifically instructed the plaintiff to investigate potential sources of equipment and to look into various other aspects of the program including possible insurance problems. Quealy also stated that he had made a number of trips with the plaintiff concerning the prison industries program and that the plaintiff had left the prison grounds without Quealy on other occasions for this same purpose. Like other employees under Quealy's supervision, the plaintiff was permitted to leave the premises when necessary and was not required to clear those absences with Quealy.

Quealy further testified that he discussed one such trip with the plaintiff on September 10, 1974. On that date, the plaintiff told Quealy that he was going to Boston to discuss with his brother-in-law the insurance problems associated with the program. Quealy's only response to the plaintiff's statement was to request him to stop at the Federal bookstore to pick up some books.

Quealy also testified concerning a letter that he had written to a representative of Middlesex County's division of industrial accidents describing the plaintiff's duties on September 10, 1974. This letter, which was before the hearings officer as an exhibit, suggests that, contrary to his testimony at the hearing, Quealy had given the plaintiff the afternoon of September 10 off to have lunch with his brother-in-law and, thus, that the plaintiff's attack was not sustained while in the performance of his duties. In attempting to explain the discrepancy between the letter and his testimony, Quealy stated that he had been annoyed at the division's request because he thought it questioned the plaintiff's job performance and that he had "missed its point."

The hearings officer issued a decision which he entitled "Recommended Decision" in which he summarized the evidence introduced at the hearing, made detailed findings of fact, and made a "Conclusion and Recommended Decision." He found, among other things, that the plaintiff's primary purpose in going to Boston...