CASE NO. 347 CRD-4-84Workers’ Compensation Commission
MARCH 2, 1987
Claimant appeared pro se. Mr. Frederick Morro.
Respondents were represented by Brian E. Prindle, Esq., and John White, Esq.
This Petition for Review from the September 18, 1984 Finding and Award of the Commissioner for the Fourth District was heard January 25, 1985 before a Compensation Review Division panel consisting of the Commission Chairman, John Arcudi and Commissioners Edward F. Bradley and Rhoda Loeb.
FINDING AND AWARD
The Finding and Award of the Fourth District Commissioner is affirmed and adopted as the Finding and Award of this tribunal.
OPINION
JOHN ARCUDI, Chairman.
Respondents’ appeal concerns the 1979 amendment to 31-308(d)[1] and the meaning of the word “significant” added to the disfigurement language that year. As a result of a compensable injury claimant, appearing here pro se, suffered a 5/8″ x 3/8″ scar, whitish in color, on the tip of the pad of the distal phalanx of the left index finger and a lumpy deformity on the same area of the body. The Fourth District Commissioner awarded three weeks benefits for that scar.
The Reason for Appeal declares that the “Commissioner erred as a matter of law in finding” the scar “is significant” As part of the proceedings below three photographs of the tip of the left index finger were admitted into evidence. At least two of the photographs do show a clearly distinguishable whitish area on the tip of the left index finger. But respondents argue the 1979 “significant” language is the semantic equivalent of the 1939 “serious” language interpreted in Dombrowski v. Fafnir Bearing Co., 148 Conn. 87 (1961). The court there held that be serious the disfigurement must be of “such character that it substantially detracts from the appearance of the person disfigured.” Dombrowski, supra, 92. Respondents have appended to their brief a Finding and Denial of Claim accompanied by a Memorandum of Decision of the First District Commissioner, Rouleau v. UTC/Pratt Whitney, File B 4386, 1983. These documents do support the contention of semantic equivalency between “significant” and “serious”
But even if arguendo we admit such equivalency and accept Chief Justice King’s Dombrowski definition, that would not be dispositive of the issue before us. To reverse the award we need to conclude as a matter of law that there was no evidence to support the Commissioner’s finding of fact. We would need to declare as a matter of law that a scar more than one and one half centimeters long and one centimeter wide having a whitish appearance even on the photographs proffered in evidence by the respondents together with a lumpy deformity did not constitute a substantial detraction from the appearance of the individual. In addition the pro se claimant points out the photographs may have minimalized the substantiality of the disfigurement. The Dombrowski scars after all were on the palm and on the inside of the right middle finger. It is true that one of the Dombrowski scars was the same length as this one, but there was no indication in Dombrowski that either of the scars had any width to speak of. Nor was there any lumpy deformity in that earlier case.
We will not therefore attempt to substitute our judgement for the trier of fact, Battey v. Osborne, 96 Conn. 633 (1921). The decision of the Commissioner is affirmed and the appeal is dismissed.
Commissioners Edward F. Bradley and Rhoda Loeb concur.