Source: https://wcc.state.ct.us/crb/2006/4893crb.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 14:23:58+00:00

Document:
The respondents were represented by Jason M. Dodge, Esq., Pomeranz, Drayton & Stabnick, 95 Glastonbury Boulevard, Glastonbury, CT 06033.
This Petition for Review from the November 16, 2004 Finding & Award for the Commissioner acting for the Third District is being considered on the papers submitted for the October 14, 2005 oral argument1 before a Compensation Review Board panel consisting of the Commission Chairman John A. Mastropietro and Commissioners Stephen B. Delaney and Michelle D. Truglia.
JOHN A. MASTROPIETRO, CHAIRMAN. The board is presently faced with the appeal of a trial commissioner’s decision finding that the hypertension of the claimant, Donald Sullivan, was job related, and hence, a compensable injury. The respondent, Town of Madison, challenges the decision on the basis the claimant failed to meet his burden of proof because there was insufficient evidence presented to the commissioner to justify an award.
The record reflects a work history which at least would suggest a relationship between work related stress and the claimant’s medical condition. He testified that he was frequently required to work a double shift (16 hours) as a dispatcher, and had to work one stretch of twenty-one consecutive days without a day off. This caused the claimant to file a grievance with the town over staffing levels. December 3, 2003 Transcript, p. 14. The claimant also testified that in 2000 changes to the 911 system increased the call volume into the Madison 911 system, as cell calls previously sent to the State Police barracks were now routed there. Id., p. 17. He also recounted a 1999 incident in which a death occurred while he had been on break and the officer who relieved him did not properly use the equipment to summon assistance. December 3, 2003 Transcript, p. 19.
The respondents do not challenge the claimant’s description of his working conditions. They do take issue with the medical evidence he presents linking his hypertension with his occupation.
In their brief, the respondents point out that the claimant had a “borderline” hypertensive reading in 1993, which his physician treated with salt avoidance, weight loss and a low fat diet. Respondents also state the claimant had gained weight between 1993 and 2001, which would tend to increase one’s blood pressure. These issues go to the weight of the evidence before the trial commissioner, and are relevant only to the extent competent medical evidence was or was not presented relating the claimant’s condition to his employment.
Respondents present a more salient argument that the claimant’s treating physician was somewhat equivocal in his statements, stating work stress “is likely playing some role in his disease.” December 5, 2003 Deposition, p. 53. While supportive of the claim, this statement must be balanced with his answer that to attribute job stress as the cause of claimant’s hypertension “would be speculation, yes.” Id., p. 32, and his unwillingness to attribute “a reasonable degree of medical certainty” to the role the claimant’s employment played in his hypertension. Id., p. 53. Respondents filed a Motion to Correct to remove a statement in paragraph nine of the Finding and Award attributing a medical conclusion of causation to Dr. Kyrcz. This motion was denied.
The respondents did not seek a correction regarding the testimony presented by Dr. Seltzer. He stated in his December 4, 2002 letter to Dr. Kyrcz. “Mr. Sullivan has labile hypertension which clearly gets worse during periods of emotional stress. Emotional stress on his job contributes to the patient’s labile hypertension and makes ongoing anti-hypertensive therapy and stress management essential.” In his decision, the trial commissioner makes specific reference to Dr. Seltzer’s opinion in determining that the claimant had met his burden of proof that his hypertension was substantially caused by his employment with the Town of Madison. Finding ¶ 10.
In reviewing this decision, we are faced with interwoven threshold questions. All judgments of evidentiary credibility are left solely to the trial commissioner, who is charged with deciding which of the documentary exhibits and witnesses are the most believable. Tartaglino v. Department of Correction, 55 Conn. App. 190, 195 (1999), cert. denied, 251 Conn. 929 (1999). However, the burden of proof in a Workers’ Compensation claim for benefits rests with the claimant. Dengler v. Special Attention Health Svcs., Inc., 62 Conn. App. 440 (2001). As our Supreme Court held in McDonough v. Connecticut Bank & Trust Co., 204 Conn. 104 (1987), in cases where heart related stress is alleged to be caused by one’s employment “in order to recover, the claimant must prove causation by a reasonable medical probability.” See Hummel v. Marten Transport, Ltd., 4667 CRB 5-03-5 (May 3, 2004), appeal dismissed for lack of final judgment, 90 Conn. App. 9 (2005).
While this board cannot retry the facts of this case, it must review the sufficiency of the evidence against the legal standards required for granting an award. “The power and duty of determining the facts rests with the commissioner, the trier of facts. Czeplicki v. Fafnir Bearing Co., 137 Conn. 454, 457, 78 A.2d 339 (1951). The conclusions drawn by him from the facts found must stand unless they result from an incorrect application of the law to the subordinate facts or from an inference illegally or unreasonably drawn from them.” Tovish v. Gerber Electronics, 32 Conn. App. 595, 602 (1993).
As Dr. Kyrcz was unwilling to testify to a reasonable medical certainty that the claimant’s work caused his hypertension, his testimony cannot sustain the Finding and Award as it is insufficient based on the precedent in McDonough, supra. Any weight provided to his opinion as to causation would be an incorrect application of the law since he failed to offer an opinion on causation sufficiently unequivocal to satisfy the McDonough test.4 As we may correct a commissioner’s misinterpretations of the law, or misapplications of the law to the subordinate facts found, Carroll v. Flattery’s Landscaping, Inc., 4499 CRB-8-02-2 (March 25, 2003), we herein determine Dr. Kyrcz’s testimony is to be given no weight.
For those reasons, we are compelled to uphold the respondents’ appeal. The Finding and Award of November 16, 2004 is herein set aside.

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