Source: https://wcc.state.ct.us/crb/2012/5493crb.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 02:07:48+00:00

Document:
Garvey v. Atlas Scenic Studios Limited et al.
The claimant was represented by William T. Shea, Esq., Shea & Cook, P. C., 290 Pratt Street, PO Box 1856, Meriden, CT 06450.
The respondents Atlas Scenic Studios and Peerless Insurance were represented by Vincent DiPalma, Esq., Law Offices of Loccisano, Turret & Rosenbaum, 101 Barnes Road, 3rd Floor, Wallingford, CT 06492.
The respondents Ring of Fire, LP and Chubb & Son were represented by Michael Vocalina, Esq., Cotter, Cotter & Mullins, 6515 Main Street, Suite 10, 2nd Floor, Trumbull, CT 06611.
The respondent Second Injury Fund was represented by Michael Belzer, Esq., Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, 55 Elm Street, PO Box 120, Hartford, CT 06141-0120.
This Petition for Review1 from the August 10, 2009 Finding and Award/Finding and Dismissal of the Commissioner acting for the Fifth District was heard February 25, 2011 before a Compensation Review Board panel consisting of Commissioners Scott A. Barton, Christine L. Engel and Stephen B. Delaney.
SCOTT A. BARTON, COMMISSIONER. The present appeal requires this tribunal to deal with issues related to concurrent employment and the date in which an average weekly wage calculation should occur. The appellant Second Injury Fund (the “Fund”) asserts error on the part of the trial commissioner in how she resolved these issues. We find one error on the part of the trial commissioner. We believe that the case of Mulligan v. F. S. Electric, 231 Conn. 529 (1994) cannot be distinguished on the facts from the present case. We affirm the trial commissioner on all other issues. The matter is remanded for a new calculation as to average weekly wage in accordance with the precedent in Mulligan, supra.
The trial commissioner found the following facts and reached the following conclusions at the end of the formal hearing. She noted two witnesses testified, the claimant and Matthew Maraffi, Associate Production Supervisor for Ring of Fire LP, which was one of the claimant’s employers. The claimant testified that he was working in the course of his employment with Atlas Scenic Studios (“Atlas”) on January 3, 2006. Atlas was a firm that provided sets to theatrical productions and the claimant was employed in building sets and loading them on a truck. On that date the claimant said he was also employed by Ring of Fire LP (“Ring of Fire”) to serve in a supervisory capacity. On January 3, 2006 the claimant injured his right hand while carrying an 18-foot platform weighing approximately 1,500 pounds with several other workers onto the truck.
Matthew Maraffi testified that the claimant’s job responsibilities for Ring of Fire included the supervision of the sets to be sure that they were built according to plan. Mr. Maraffi stated he communicated via telephone with the claimant during the loading to confirm that the sets were being loaded in the order he required and the claimant would call out the order to the workers who were physically loading the sets. Mr. Maraffi stated that there was a clear difference between the job the claimant was doing for Atlas and what he was doing for Ring of Fire. The claimant testified he injured his hand when he was performing his responsibilities to Atlas of physically loading one of the platforms onto the truck at the Atlas Studio. The claimant filed a Notice of Claim (Form 30-C) against Atlas which was received at the Workers’ Compensation Commission on June 22, 2006. The claim form did not cite Ring of Fire as an employer and no claim was filed by the claimant against Ring of Fire.
The claimant continued to work at Atlas and Ring of Fire as well as for other theatrical companies, including but not limited to, Avenue Q, LLC (“Avenue Q”) from January 6, 2006 through August 29, 2006 and did not lose any time from work. He continued to have hand problems and testified he was treated by Dr. Lawrence Kirwan. The claimant did not lose any time from work at all until August 30, 2006 when he underwent right hand surgery. This surgery was authorized and paid for by Atlas. At the time the claimant was disabled he was working exclusively for Avenue Q. The claimant was totally disabled following surgery from August 29, 2006 through November 26, 2006. The trial commissioner noted Atlas accepted the claim and issued Voluntary Agreements. These agreements were based on an average weekly wage based on concurrent employment of $2,349.38, with a resulting compensation rate for total disability at $1,005.00 per week. The claimant never signed these Voluntary Agreements and they were not submitted to the Commissioner for approval. These Voluntary Agreements had a calculation that Atlas’s portion was approximately 13.7 weeks of temporary total benefits at $445.98, a total of $6,119.33.
The claimant testified that he was married and had two dependent children. He was released to light-duty during the period from November 27, 2006 through January 7, 2007. Atlas filed a Form 36 which was received by the Workers’ Compensation Commission on December 13, 2006 for light-duty pursuant to claimant’s treating physician. This form was approved as of date of receipt. The claimant testified that when he returned to work he worked light-duty with Avenue Q only because Atlas did not have light-duty work available. The claimant submitted his wages from Avenue Q, LLC from January 2, 2005 thru September 3, 2006 (Claimant’s Exhibit A) and November 27, 2006 through January 7, 2007 (Claimant’s Exhibit B).
The trial commissioner noted the relevant provisions of § 31-310 (a) C.G.S.2 and two Connecticut Supreme Court cases, Mulligan, supra., and Rousu v. Collins Co., 114 Conn. 24 (1931). In considering the evidence she found the claimant credible, particularly on the issue as to whether there was a difference in the work he performed for Atlas and the work he performed for Ring of Fire, she found the claimant’s work for Ring of Fire was supervisory in nature. As the claimant’s injury occurred when he was physically loading a truck the trial commissioner found the claimant injured his hand while in the course of his employment as a carpenter with Atlas on January 3, 2006.
The trial commissioner further considered the issue of the claimant’s post-injury employment. She noted that the claimant had not sought benefits from Ring of Fire and did not lose any time from work between the date of injury and August 29, 2006, and had worked for Atlas, Ring of Fire and Avenue Q in this period. The claimant was totally disabled following surgery from August 29, 2006 through November 26, 2006. Upon the claimant’s return to work he returned to work with Avenue Q only on November 27, 2006 because Atlas did not have any light-duty work available. Due to the relatively short lapse of time (6 1/2 months between the date of injury and the date of incapacity) in this case the trial commissioner found the Mulligan case, where there was a two year time period between injury and incapacity, factually distinguishable from the present case. The trial commissioner therefore determined that the claimant’s average weekly wage should be calculated based on the 26 weeks prior to the date of injury. The trial commissioner concluded that on that date the claimant was concurrently employed, and therefore the claimant’s temporary total and temporary partial benefits were to be paid by Atlas and the Second Injury Fund, pursuant to § 31-310 C.G.S. All claims against Ring of Fire were dismissed.
The Second Injury Fund filed a motion to reopen the Findings and a Motion to Correct. Both Motions were denied by the trial commissioner. The Second Injury Fund filed a Petition for Review dated September 6, 2009 which was received at the Commission on September 9, 2009. The Fund filed its Reasons for Appeal on September 9, 2009. The insurer for Ring of Fire, Chubb and Son, filed a Motion to Dismiss this appeal as untimely. As we must consider such a challenge to jurisdiction prior to considering the merits of the appeal we must decide this motion first.
Chubb argues that since the Finding and Award was issued on August 10, 2009 the Fund’s appeal documents are jurisdictionally invalid as they were not filed within twenty days of that decision in accordance with § 31-301(a) C.G.S.3 The Fund argues that as they filed a Motion to Reopen during the twenty day period, this motion serves to toll the appeal period and an appeal is timely if it commenced within twenty days of the decision rendered on this motion. We believe the “plain meaning” of the statute, see § 1-2z C.G.S., is more consistent with the Fund’s position on jurisdiction. We deny the Motion to Dismiss.
We now consider the merits of the Fund’s appeal. The Fund bases its appeal on two primary arguments. The first argument was that the claimant must be deemed to have been concurrently employed at the precise time of his injury, and therefore Ring of Fire must be deemed equally liable for the compensation due the claimant. The second argument is that the trial commissioner improperly applied the law in Mulligan, supra, by deeming the amount of time between injury and incapacity insufficient to apply the “date of incapacity” rule. In response, Ring of Fire and its insurer argue that the trial commissioner’s Finding and Award was legally valid. Ring of Fire questions the Fund’s posture in raising the concurrent employment argument on appeal, noting the issue was not noticed at the Formal Hearing and the claimant never sought compensation from Ring of Fire. The other appellee, Atlas, argues that the trial commissioner properly applied the concurrent employment statute. Atlas also argues that a “date of medical impairment” rule supports the trial commissioner’s determination as to the appropriate compensation rate.
We are not persuaded by the Fund’s argument that the trial commissioner erred in identifying the appropriate employer or employers in this case. We do note that the trial commissioner concluded based on the claimant’s testimony that two separate entities were both paying him at the same time while he was working at the Atlas studio. It is a question of fact as to which of these employers was receiving a benefit at the moment the claimant was injured. The Fund submitted a lengthy Motion to Correct which outlined factual determinations in its favor. The trial commissioner rejected this Motion. When a trial commissioner rejects a Motion to Correct, we may infer the commissioner did not find the proposed findings were grounded in probative or persuasive evidence. Brockenberry v. Thomas Deegan d/b/a Tom’s Scrap Metal, Inc., 5429 CRB-5-09-2 (January 22, 2010), aff’d, 126 Conn. App. 902 (2011)(per curiam). We may not retry the facts of this case. We do not find the trial commissioner’s denial of the Motion to Correct was arbitrary o. capricious pursuant to the standards delineated in In re Shaquanna M., 61 Conn. App. 592 (2001). Since we may reverse a trial commissioner’s findings of fact when they are “clearly erroneous,” Berube v. Tim’s Painting, 5068 CRB-3-06-3 (March 13, 2007), we find no error.
The Fund advances a meritorious argument as to the manner in which the trial commissioner applied Mulligan, supra. The appellees argue that there is “wiggle room” in Mulligan and that the trial commissioner appropriately determined that the facts here, where the claimant was disabled from work only a few months after his accident, were distinguishable from Mulligan. We recently decided a case based on § 31-310 (a) C.G.S. and can find no support for extending “wiggle room” to the Mulligan precedent.
In Partlow v. Petroleum Heat & Power Company, Inc., 5432 CRB-7-09-2 (February 9, 2010) we reviewed a Finding and Award where the trial commissioner applied a “date of injury” standard to the claimant’s compensation rate. We reversed this decision, finding that Mulligan, supra, Moxon v. Board of Trustees of Regional Community Colleges, 37 Conn. App. 648 (1995) and Rousu v. Collins Co., 114 Conn. 24 (1931) established “a ‘date of incapacity’ standard for the determination of a wage rate when there is a gap between date of injury and date of incapacity.”. Partlow, supra.
We reviewed the Supreme Court’s Mulligan decision at length in Partlow, and for the following reasons, believe it has delineated a “bright-line” standard of incapacity as the benchmark date for setting a compensation rate.
The Court did an extensive review of the legal theories and precedent governing the payment of temporary total disability benefits and determined “[w]e agree with the claimant that the calculation should have been based on his earnings preceding his incapacity.”. Mulligan, supra at 540. The Court in Mulligan restated the holding reached in Rousu, supra, that “. . . The just measure of the value of the earning power of an employee and the correlative loss incurred by him would seem to relate to his earnings at the time the loss occurs through incapacity to work, rather than his earnings at an earlier time . . . .”. Mulligan, supra, at 541. (Emphasis in original.. The court in Mulligan rejected the respondent’s argument that Rousu should be limited to occupational disease cases, and made clear the “date of incapacity” standard applied to traumatic injuries. Id., at 542-545.
The facts in the present case are that the claimant did not miss work immediately after his injury. While counsel for Atlas argues the claimant had a “medical impairment” during this time period, the facts are the claimant did not find this impairment debilitating enough to prevent him from working. The standard under our case law for determination of an average weekly wage is “incapacity” and not “impairment.”. Nor do we find any authority supportive of the trial commissioner’s position in Conclusion, ¶ R that a “short period of time” constitutes an exemption from the general rule promulgated in Mulligan. The “bright-line rule” applies whether the lapse of time from injury to incapacity is six weeks or six years.
In Christensen v. H & L Plastics Co., Inc., 5171 CRB-3-06-12 (November 19, 2007) we established that when a trial commissioner has reached an erroneous finding of law, we have the “responsibility as an appellate body to correct a commissioner’s misapplication of the law to the subordinate facts. See Carroll v. Flattery’s Landscaping, Inc., 4499 CRB-8-02-2 (March 25, 2003).”. Id. In this case, we must correct the trial commissioner’s application of law as to the Mulligan decision.
We therefore affirm the Finding and Award; with the exception of Conclusions, ¶¶ R and S. The matter is herein remanded for further proceedings to establish an appropriate compensation rate pursuant to § 31-310 (a) C.G.S. applying an incapacity date of August 30, 2006.
Commissioners Christine L. Engel and Stephen B. Delaney concur in this opinion.

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