Argued
September 10, 2018
Procedural
History
Consolidated
appeals from the decisions of the Workers' Compensation
Commissioner for the Fourth District granting the motion to
substitute the claimant filed by Janet Brennan, executrix of
the estate of Thomas Brennan, and awarding permanent partial
disability benefits to the substitute plaintiff, brought to
the Compensation Review Board, which reversed the
commissioner's decisions and remanded the case for
further proceedings, and the substitute plaintiff appealed.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part; decision directed in
part; further proceedings.
Richard O. LaBrecque, with whom were Francis J. Grady and, on
the brief, Marina L. Green, for the appellant (substitute
plaintiff).
Daniel
J. Foster, with whom, on the brief, was Linda T. Wihbey, for
the appellee (defendant).
Robinson, C. J., and Palmer, McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins,
Kahn and Ecker, Js. [*]
OPINION
McDONALD, J.
In this
appeal, we consider whether heart and hypertension benefits
under General Statutes § 7-433c for permanent disability
properly are paid to a deceased claimant's estate if such
benefits vested and were payable ("matured") during
the claimant's lifetime but were not paid to the claimant
before his death. In particular, we are asked to consider
whether Morgan v. East Haven, 208 Conn.
576, 546 A.2d 243 (1988), and the legislative response to
that decision, instead requires payment of such benefits to
the claimant's dependents or nondependent children.
The
plaintiff, Janet Brennan, executrix of the estate of Thomas
Brennan (executrix), appeals from the decision of the
Compensation Review Board concluding that the executrix
improperly was substituted as party claimant because a
claimant's estate cannot receive the claimant's
vested but unpaid § 7-433c benefits. We hold that
neither Morgan nor any other legal authority barred
the substitution to the extent that the executrix sought
payment of matured benefits. We conclude, however, that, on
the record before this court, we cannot determine that the
permanent disability benefits matured prior to the death of
Thomas Brennan (decedent). Accordingly, we reverse the
board's decision only as to its determination that the
decision of the Workers' Compensation Commissioner for
the Fourth District (commissioner) to grant the motion to
substitute the executrix as a party claimant was improper,
but we affirm the decision in all other respects.
The
record reveals the following undisputed facts and procedural
history. In 1991, the decedent was employed by the defendant,
the city of Waterbury (city), as its fire chief. During all
relevant times, Janet Brennan[1]was married to the decedent. After
the decedent suffered a heart attack during the course of his
employment in July, 1993, he promptly filed a claim for
§ 7-433c benefits. The Workers' Compensation
Commissioner for the Fifth District thereafter accepted the
parties' stipulation of facts, wherein they agreed that
the decedent had been diagnosed with hypertension and heart
disease after his heart attack and that no evidence of such
disease had been present prior to the decedent's
employment as fire chief.[2] In December, 1993, the fifth district
commissioner issued a finding and award, which ordered the
city to pay the decedent all of the benefits of § 7-433c
to which he "is or may become entitled."
For
several years after issuance of the 1993 finding and award,
the decedent and the city attempted to reach an agreement on
the payment of benefits.[3] While negotiations were ongoing, the
decedent elected to take disability retirement in December,
1995. In connection with the disability pension hearing and
the pending § 7-433c claim, the city obtained opinions
from three medical experts assessing the extent of the
decedent's disability. Two of those experts rated the
permanent impairment relating to his heart condition at 50
percent, and the other expert rated it at 75 percent. The
decedent obtained an opinion from his own physician, who
assessed the permanent impairment at 80 percent. The
city's retirement board authorized a disability
pension.[4]
Thereafter,
the city also made certain payments to the decedent pursuant
to § 7-433c. In July, 1997, the city paid the decedent a
lump sum, which the accompanying letter from the city's
risk manager explained as "representing 115.4 weeks [of
permanent partial disability benefits] from the [maximum
medical improvement] date of [October 13, 1993] to [the
decedent's] retirement date of [December 21, 1995] at his
maximum [permanent partial disability] rate .... We can use
this amount as an advance if a final settlement can be
reached. In the event that one is not obtainable at this
time, the balance of [the decedent's permanent partial
disability] would be calculated pursuant to [the statutory
cap under General Statutes §]
7-433b."[5] In June, 1999, the city paid the decedent
an additional lump sum, which represented a "52 weeks
advance [of permanent partial disability that was] calculated
pursuant to [the statutory cap under §] 7-433b and
utilized a counterpart's pay . . . ."
The
city and the decedent, however, never entered into a full and
final settlement of the heart and hypertension claim. The
failure to do so may have been due to the city's ongoing
financial difficulties, which, in 2001, resulted in the
appointment of an oversight board to review and control the
city's financial affairs. See Public Acts, Spec. Sess.,
June, 2001, No. 01-1.
In
2003, due to his deteriorating health, the decedent sought
temporary total incapacity benefits. The city paid the
decedent total incapacity benefits from February 19, 2003,
until the decedent's death on April 20,
2006.[6]
It was
not until 2013 that the decedent's attorney sought to
finalize the decedent's permanent partial disability
claim under § 7-433c. In connection with those
proceedings, the decedent's treating physician, who had
assigned an 80 percent disability rating in 1995, issued a
postmortem opinion that the decedent's permanent
disability rating should be increased to 90 percent.
Subsequently, the decedent's attorney moved to substitute
Brennan in her capacity as executrix of the decedent's
estate and Brennan in her individual capacity as party
claimants.[7]
The
city objected to the substitutions, advancing two independent
grounds with respect to the estate. First, it contended that
Brennan, the decedent's sole heir and the beneficiary of
a spousal pension, was improperly seeking to circumvent the
city charter's pension offset, which would negate any
§ 7-433c benefits otherwise due to her. Second, it
contended that, pursuant to Morgan v. East
Haven, supra, 208 Conn. 576, the estate was not a
legally qualified recipient of funds paid under §
7-433c. In reply, the decedent's counsel contended that
the substitution was proper because the benefits had vested
and matured during the decedent's lifetime and, as such,
would pass to his estate. The commissioner granted the motion
insofar as it permitted the estate to be substituted as a
party, but he denied the motion as to Brennan individually.
The commissioner cited General Statutes § 52-599 (b),
which provides for the survival of actions and the
continuation of actions by a decedent's executor, as
authority for the substitution. The city filed an appeal from
the decision granting the estate's substitution. While
that appeal was pending, proceedings continued on the
benefits claim.
In
December, 2015, the commissioner issued a finding and
decision, ordering the city to pay benefits for 80 percent
permanent partial disability of the decedent's heart
pursuant to General Statutes §§ 7-433c and 31-308
(b), less any advance payments made to date on permanent
partial disability. In support of this decision, the
commissioner found that the decedent had reached maximum
medical improvement on October 13, 1993, and credited the
1995 opinion of the decedent's physician assigning the 80
percent permanency rating to the decedent's disability.
The commissioner declined to credit the lesser ratings of the
city's three medical experts or the greater postmortem
rating of the decedent's physician. The commissioner
concluded that the decedent's entitlement to permanent
partial disability benefits had vested prior to his death.
The commissioner specifically concluded, however, that
benefits were "due and payable to Janet Brennan and not
the estate of [the decedent] . . . ."
Both
parties filed motions to correct and for an articulation. The
commissioner denied the city's motions but granted the
executrix' motions in part. Specifically, the executrix
sought (1) an articulation as to the dates on which the
decedent's entitlement to disability benefits
"vested and matured"; (emphasis added);
and (2) a correction making the disability benefits payable
to the estate or, alternatively, an articulation as to why
the benefits are properly payable to Brennan individually. In
response, the commissioner issued the following correction:
"[Permanent partial disability] benefits vested as of
the date of [maximum medical improvement] on October 13,
1993. [Permanent partial disability] benefits of 80 [percent]
of the heart are payable to Janet Brennan, [e]xecutrix of the
[e]state of [the decedent]." The city filed an appeal
from the corrected finding and decision.
At the
city's request, the board consolidated the appeal
contesting the estate's substitution with the appeal
contesting the corrected finding and decision. The board
concluded that the case was controlled by Morgan v.
East Haven, supra, 208 Conn. 576, which the board
interpreted to hold that an estate is not a qualified
recipient of vested but unpaid § 7-433c benefits. In
reliance on Morgan, the board vacated the
commissioner's decision granting the motion to substitute
the executrix, vacated the corrected decision making the
estate the beneficiary, and remanded the case to the
commissioner to decide the proper recipient of the benefits.
As to the benefits owed to any such recipient, the board
affirmed the central findings of the commissioner's
decision. However, the board ordered the commissioner, when
considering on remand the proper beneficiary, also to address
several issues previously raised by the city relating to the
availability and amount of benefits that the commissioner had
declined to address.[8] This appeal followed.[9]
I
Before
turning to the executrix' challenges to the board's
decision, we must dispose of a jurisdictional issue raised by
the city. See, e.g., Soracco v. Williams
Scotsman, Inc., 292 Conn. 86, 90-91, 971 A.2d 1 (2009).
Specifically, the city contends that this appeal must be
dismissed because it was filed by Brennan individually, who
lacks standing to appeal as she neither was a party to the
proceedings below nor is aggrieved by the board's
decision. We disagree.
The
city's jurisdictional claim rests on the fact that the
appeal form reflects that "Janet Brennan" is
identified as the party filing the appeal. However, this
entry does not indicate whether Brennan filed the appeal in
her representative or individual capacity. This court has
explained that "the forms for appeals and amended
appeals do not in any way implicate appellate subject matter
jurisdiction. They are merely the formal, technical vehicles
by which parties seek to invoke that jurisdiction. Compliance
with them need not be perfect; it is the substance that
matters, not the form." (Emphasis added.)
Pritchard v. Pritchard, 281 Conn. 262, 275, 914 A.2d
1025 (2007). When there is an ambiguity as to the identity of
the appellant, this court will look to other filings to
resolve that ambiguity. See, e.g., Celentano v.
Rocque, 282 Conn. 645, 647 n.1, 923 A.2d 709 (2007).
The docketing statement, the name of the case cited on the
appeal form, and the appellant's brief indicate that the
appellant's intention was that the appeal was filed on
behalf of "Janet Brennan, Executrix of the Estate of
Thomas Brennan." Although these documents also refer to
Brennan individually, the aforementioned references are
sufficient to dispel any ambiguity as to whether a proper
party has filed the appeal. See, e.g., id.
(referring to briefs and docketing statement to discern
proper identity of parties to appeal). Accordingly, we reject
the city's request for dismissal of the appeal.
II
We now
turn to the merits of the appeal. The executrix contends that
the estate is the proper recipient of any unpaid permanent
partial disability benefits owed by the city because those
benefits matured during the decedent's lifetime. Had they
been paid when due, according to the executrix, the entirety
of the decedent's benefits would have been paid during
his lifetime. The executrix further contends that Morgan
v. East Haven, supra, 208 Conn. 576, on which
the board relied, presents no legal impediment to awarding
benefits to a claimant's estate because certain statutory
language on which the case relied was repealed. Should this
court conclude that Morgan was not implicitly
legislatively overruled, she contends that Morgan
should be either limited to its facts, which involved
unmatured benefits, or overruled if applicable to vested,
matured benefits.
The
city disagrees with the executrix' characterization of
the benefits as matured. It also defends the vitality and
applicability of Morgan, and contends that awarding
unpaid benefits to an estate would undermine legislative
intent to provide compensation only to dependents.
We
conclude that § 7-433c benefits properly may be paid to
a claimant's estate, if such benefits matured before the
claimant's death. However, we disagree that the record
establishes that the disability benefits at ...