Connecticut high court clarifies what 'file' means in workers' comp cases
The court determined that letters contesting liability must be delivered, not just mailed, within 28 days.
The Connecticut Supreme Court defined the word “file” in a workers’ compensation case and the clarified language determined that letters contesting liability must be delivered, not just mailed, within 28 days.
After the plaintiff, Ajredin Ajdini, suffered two injuries in July 2018, he sent the Workers’ Compensation Commission and his employer, Frank Lill & Son Inc., a Form 30C notice of claim for the two injuries, which were delivered on May 3, 2019, court records showed.
The plaintiff’s employer mailed a Form 43 notice of intention to contest the plaintiff’s rights to compensation benefits on May 29, 2019, and the commission received it on June 3. The plaintiff received his copy on June 6, according to the procedural history.
To contest claims, Form 43 must be filed within 28 days of receiving the notice of claims, the opinion said.
In a motion to preclude, the plaintiff argued that “because the employer had failed to commence payment of the claims or to file a notice of intention to contest the claims within 28 days following its receipt of the notice of claims, as required by § 31-294c (b), the employer should be presumed to have accepted the compensability of the plaintiff’s alleged injuries and precluded from contesting the claims.”
The administrative law judge agreed and granted the motion. The defendants, the employer and its workers’ compensation carriers, claimed the “date of service is deemed to be the date of mailing,” but the Compensation Review Board did not agree.
On appeal, the defendants said the mailbox rule applies and it was the Legislature’s intent for it to be used in the context of workers’ compensation statutes, the high court’s decision said.
The plaintiff argued that the mailbox rule does not apply under the definition of filing, which the plaintiff claimed requires a receipt, “and to conclude otherwise would, in contravention of the intent of the statute, create delays and leave claimants in limbo,” the decision said.
The Supreme Court found that the word “file” was not defined in the statute, and turned to the dictionary. The amendments relevant to this lawsuit in the Workers’ Compensation Act were passed in 1993. The definition of “file” in Black’s Law Dictionary, the sixth edition in 1990, was “to deliver (as a legal paper or instrument) … to the proper officer for keeping on file or among the records of his office,” the opinion said.
Therefore, the high court said ”it is plain and unambiguous that a notice of intention to contest compensation must be delivered, not just mailed, to the administrative law judge on or before the twenty-eighth day after the employer received written notice of claim.”
Counsel for the defendants, Peter M. LoVerme of Tentindo, Kendall, Canniff & Keefe, did not respond to a request for comment.
Andrew E. Wallace of Jacobs & Wallace, counsel for the plaintiff, said he is pleased that the Supreme Court confirmed that the mailbox rule doesn’t apply to Form 43 when granting a motion to preclude.
“This is an important decision for all injured workers,” Wallace said. “When a worker is injured, they often need medical treatment and payments for lost wages right away. Most injured workers do not have the luxury of waiting more than the 28-day statutory response period, and this ruling will ultimately help hold employers and insurers responsible for timely investigating and responding to the notice of claim within that allotted 28-day period.”
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