Source: https://wcc.state.ct.us/crb/1997/3153crb.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 01:50:13+00:00

Document:
The respondent employer and her estate were not represented at oral argument. Notice sent to Gary Ginsberg, Esq., 377 Main St., West Haven, CT 06516.
These Petitions for Review from the August 18, 1995 Ruling on Respondent’s Motion to Reopen Pursuant to Finding and Award and the undated denial of the Motion to Reopen Judgment by the Commissioner acting for the Fifth District were heard May 24, 1996 before a Compensation Review Board panel consisting of the Commission Chairman Jesse M. Frankl and Commissioners George A. Waldron and Robin L. Wilson.
JESSE M. FRANKL, CHAIRMAN. The respondent Second Injury Fund has petitioned for review from the Ruling on Respondent’s Motion to Reopen Pursuant to Finding and Award dated August 18, 1995, and has also petitioned for review from the undated denial of its August 28, 1995 Motion to Reopen Judgment of the Commissioner acting for the Fifth District. The Fund argues on appeal that the commissioner erred by ordering the Fund to pay benefits without first entering an order against another party, and that he erroneously failed to address other issues below. Before addressing these arguments, we first review the history of this case.
Instead of appealing that decision, the Fund again moved to reopen on August 11, 1995, on the ground, inter alia, that no order had been entered against a legal entity prior to the entry of the order against the Fund. Most of that motion was denied, and the Fund filed a petition for review. It also filed a supplemental motion to reopen, again alleging insufficient factual findings to support the exercise of jurisdiction over the Fund. That motion was also denied, and the Fund again petitioned for review. Subsequently, the claimant filed a motion to dismiss the two appeals.
Our consideration of the claimant’s Motion to Dismiss first requires us to note that the Second Injury Fund did not file reasons for appeal pursuant to Admin. Reg. § 31-301-2 in this case. According to that regulation, reasons for appeal were due within ten days of the filing of the petition for review. The second petition for review was filed in this case on September 8, 1995. However, the claimant’s Motion to Dismiss should have been filed within ten days of the day the reasons of appeal became late, pursuant to Practice Book § 4056. Instead, it was filed on December 19, 1995. Thus, the absence of the Fund’s reasons of appeal is deemed waived. Sager v. GAB Business Services, 11 Conn. App. 693, 698 (1987).
As the claimant points out in the argument accompanying her Motion to Dismiss, the Fund has not appealed here from the Finding and Award itself. Instead, both petitions for review arise from the denial of a Motion to Reopen. In two instances in the procedural history of this case, the Fund has failed to appeal from a commissioner’s Finding and Award, and has instead moved to reopen proceedings. “Where, as here, an appeal from a final judgment has not been seasonably taken, ‘[c]laimed errors which might have been assigned on such an appeal are no longer open to review’ upon an appeal from a denial of a motion to open that judgment.” Crozier v. Zaboori, 14 Conn. App. 457, 462 (1988), citing Zingus v. Redevelopment Agency, 161 Conn. 276, 282 (1971). Moreover, the issues the Fund seeks to raise in this appeal are primarily attempts to reargue the jurisdictional issue addressed in this board’s prior Matey decision. As we stated in Peters v. State of Connecticut/Southern Connecticut State University, 13 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 131, 134, 1616 CRB-5-92-12 (Feb. 1, 1995), a party is not entitled to raise questions which were or could have been answered in a prior appeal, even if they concern subject matter jurisdiction. Thus, we must limit our focus on this appeal to the question of whether or not the commissioner abused his discretion in denying the Fund’s motions to reopen under § 31-315 C.G.S.
In the motions to reopen, the Fund did not contend that there was a change in the claimant’s incapacity, or that her degree of dependence on compensation had changed, or that any other conditions of fact relevant to this case had somehow become different. Thus, the commissioner did not err in refusing to reopen the case yet again to consider the claims that the Fund was entitled to a credit pursuant to § 31-293, or that the employer’s executors have not been properly served with the various awards. See Hayden v. Wallace & Sons Mfg. Co., 100 Conn. 180, 185 (1923). Those issues could have been raised long, long ago.
The one legitimate argument that the Fund does have is that the commissioner did not have authority under § 31-355(a) to order payment from the Fund until an award was first made against the employer, and that employer failed to pay the compensation. Bethune v. A&A Seafood, 9 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 79, 80, 927 CRD-3-89-10 (Feb. 20, 1991). That flaw can be remedied simply by remanding this case to the trial commissioner, however, for entry of an order against the decedent employer and/or her estate. As the co-executors of the claimant’s estate both appeared at formal hearings and were excused by the trial commissioner, we have no qualms about saying that they have been apprised of these proceedings and have consented to the jurisdiction of the Workers’ Compensation Commission, and that an award may be entered against the estate. Any difficulty that the Fund has due to the lack of a notice of claim in the probate court is, as we decided in the earlier appeal, not an issue that we will address in this forum. Once an award has been entered against the decedent employer or her estate, if it remains unpaid, an order to pay that award may then be entered against the Second Injury Fund.
The trial commissioner’s denial of the Fund’s August 28, 1995 Motion to Reopen Judgment is thus reversed. The case is remanded to the Fifth District for the limited but necessary procedural purpose of entering an award against the decedent employer’s estate before the trial commissioner may invoke Fund liability under § 31-355(a).

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