CASE NO. 297 CRD-6-84Workers’ Compensation Commission
MAY 1, 1986
The claimant was represented by Lawrence J. Fagan, Esq.
The respondents were represented by Howard B. Field, III, Esq.
This Petition for Review from the December 29, 1983 Finding and Award of the Commissioner for the Sixth District was argued September 20, 1985 before a Compensation Review Division panel consisting of the Commission Chairman, John Arcudi and Commissioners A. Paul Berte and Gerald Kolinsky.
FINDING AND AWARD
1-36. Paragraphs 1 through 36 of the December 29, 1983 Finding and Award of the Commissioner for the Sixth District are affirmed and adopted as the Finding and Award of this Division.
37. It is found that Claimant was totally disabled from work and has continued so since March 15, 1976.
38. It is found that claimant’s total disability was caused by injuries arising out of and in the course of her employment with employer-respondent April 6, 1973.
WHEREFORE IT IS ORDERED ADJUDGED AWARDED and DECREED that.
A. Respondent is ordered to pay temporary total disability from March 15, 1976 to the present time and to continue such payments until claimant’s condition has changed.
BC. Paragraphs B and C of the Commissioner’s December 29, 1983 Award are affirmed and adopted as paragraphs B and C of this Division’s Award.
OPINION
JOHN ARCUDI, Chairman.
If nothing else, Respondents-Appellants’ brief in this matter demonstrates admirable fidelity to the dictionary definition of the adjective “brief”. Although we have modified the Finding and Award in several of the particulars requested, the conclusion of the Commissioner below that the claimant is now totally disabled as a result of her April 6, 1973 work accident is affirmed by us.
Respondents agree that claimant suffered a work injury April 6, 1973. They paid temporary total benefits of $66.88 per week plus applicable cost of living increments for almost ten months. They also paid claimant 26 weeks of permanent partial disability benefits for a 5% permanent loss of use of the dorsal spine in 1974.
Both these temporary total and specific benefits were paid pursuant to voluntary agreements between the parties, the first approved November 9, 1973 and the second approved by the Sixth District Commissioner March 15, 1974. But claimant continued to complain of pain both in the lower and upper back and in the right scapular region. She was treated by various physicians for these pains.
On March 15, 1976 she was seen by Dr. Guy Owens, a New Britain neurosurgeon who performed a cervical laminectomy in New Britain Hospital July 1, 1976. Dr. Owens treated claimant for some years thereafter for her continuing symptoms. He testified at the Formal Hearing October 27, 1982 that claimant was totally unemployable and that her disability arose out of the work incident of April 6, 1973. He did not testify as to her condition between 1974 and March, 1976. That expert testimony certainly formed a sufficient basis for the conclusion that claimant was totally disabled since 1976 because of an injury arising out of and in the course of the employment. We have so found in the modification we have made in the Commissioner’s Finding.
However, Dr. Owens professed no specific knowledge of claimant’s condition before March, 1976. Under 31-315 C.G.S.[1]
some evidence of changed conditions would need to be presented to justify setting aside the voluntary agreements which the parties entered into concerning the temporary total and the specific paid claimant in 1973 and 1974 respectively, Welch v. Arthur Fogarty, 157 Conn. 538 (1969). Also with respect to the period from mid 1974 to March, 1976 claimant gave no medical evidence of disability. Because 31-315 was not satisfied with respect to reopening the previously approved voluntary agreement and because there was no expert evidence of total disability for the two years immediately preceding March, 1976, the Commissioner erred in finding it for those months.
The decision of the Commissioner is affirmed in part and modified as found above.
Commissioners A. Paul Berte and Gerald Kolinsky concur.