BORG v. WATERFORD COUNTRY SCHOOL, 156 CRD-2-82 (7-3-84)


THOMAS BORG, CLAIMANT-CROSS APPEAL APPELLANT vs. WATERFORD COUNTRY SCHOOL, LOUIS REGUIN, EMPLOYERS and TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY, INSURER, RESPONDENTS-APPELLANTS

CASE NO. 156 CRD-2-82Workers’ Compensation Commission
JULY 3, 1984

The Claimant was represented by William E. McCoy, Esq.

The Respondent, Louis Reguin, was represented by Frederick Berberick, Jr., Esq.

The Respondent, Waterford Country School and Travelers Insurance Company, was represented by Robert E. Beach, Jr., Esq.

This Petition for Review from the July 22, 1982 Finding and Award of the Commissioner for the Second District was argued June 24, 1983 before a Compensation Review Division Panel consisting of the Commission Chairman, John Arcudi, and Commissioners Andrew Denuzze and Gerald Kolinsky.

FINDING AND AWARD

The Finding and Award of the Second District Commissioner is adopted as the Finding and Award of the Compensation Review Division.

OPINION

JOHN ARCUDI, Chairman.

Claimant suffered an admitted compensable injury to his back arising out of and in the course of his employment with the Employer-Respondent Waterford Country School April 10, 1978. He received temporary total disability benefits from the Insurer-Respondent Travelers Insurance Company as a result of the 1978 accident. He continued to work for Waterford until August 1978.

Between August 1978 and the Spring of 1981 claimant had intermittent employment in the State of Maine. In April or May, 1981 he began working for the Employer-Respondent Louis Reguin as a carpenter doing all phases of roofing and remodeling. The job required him to do heavy lifting. That summer he experienced increasing back pain, and he initially went to Dr. Leonard Kimsey, a chiropractor for treatment, but he continued to work. By September 28, 1981 the pain became so intense that he sought treatment from the Norwich Orthopedist Dr. Malcolm Edgar who had seen him at the time of the 1978 incident. That doctor advised him to stop heavy work and seek only light work more suitable to his back’s weakened condition. Claimant sought such light work but was unable to secure any, due to the limitations on his activity imposed by Dr. Edgar.

Dr. Edgar in a September 28, 1981 written report in evidence before the trial Commissioner stated:

“During the recent past his job included carrying heavy bundles of shingles and working of (sic) roofs and he found that his symptoms became sufficiently intense and that his fatiguing worsened . . .”

The attorney for the Insurer-Respondent wrote the doctor a February 17, 1982 letter also in evidence. The attorney’s letter referred to the portion of the September 28 report excerpted above and asked the doctor whether the work as a carpenter in 1981 had aggravated the claimant’s condition to the point that he was no longer able to work at that particular occupation. The doctor responded by letter March 1, 1982. In that letter the doctor explained that claimant’s April, 1978 injury was a soft tissue injury, and he had anticipated that the employee would have healed completely without residuals. But his letter went on as follows:

“I gather from your note to me that Mr. Borg has, at times, been engaged in rather strenuous activities subsequent to the initial injury and, until the recent past, has tolerated it rather well . . .”

Besides Dr. Edgar the claimant saw Dr. Mario Sculco, a Norwich neurosurgeon who performed a myelogram at William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich. In describing “PRESENT ILLNESS” Dr. Sculco’s note states:

“Pt. has had recurrent bouts of backache related to industrial injury. These have become worse since a recent injury . . .”

These doctor’s reports together with the claimant’s own testimony before the Commissioner provided a sufficient evidentiary basis for the Commissioner’s Finding, Paragraph 13, that the heavy work done for the Employer-Respondent, Louis Reguin, in 1981 was causally related to the disabling symptoms suffered by claimant in September, 1981. That work for Reguin constituted an injury arising out of and in the course of the employment. We need not decide whether the injury was a single compensable event identifiable in time and space or whether it was repetitive trauma.[1] It is sufficient that there was evidence presented supporting the Commissioner’s conclusions relative to causation and to apportionment of the responsibility Plecity v. McLachlan Hat Co., 116 Conn. 216 (1933), Mund v. Farmers’ Cooperative, Inc., 139 Conn. 338 (1952).

The appeal is dismissed and the decision of the Commissioner is affirmed.

Commissioners Denuzze and Kolinsky join in this opinion.

[1] Section 31-275(8) C.G.S.