CASE NO. 848 CRD-4-89-4Workers’ Compensation Commission
SEPTEMBER 21, 1990
The claimant was represented by Thomas G. Cotter, Esq., Cotter, Cotter Sohon.
The respondents were represented by William C. Brown, Esq., McGann, Bartlett Brown.
This Petition for Review from the April 3, 1989 Finding and Award of the Commissioner for the Fourth District was heard March 30, 1990 before a Compensation Review Division panel consisting of the Commission Chairman, John Arcudi, and Commissioners Robin Waller, and George Waldron.
OPINION
JOHN ARCUDI, CHAIRMAN.
At issue here is whether a child born April 15, 1987, three months after a January 8 compensable injury to its father may be considered a dependent under Sec. 31-308b.[1]
The fourth District Commissioner ruled that a dependency allowance was payable beginning at time of birth.
Respondents’ appeal argues that a child en ventre sa mere is wholly and mainly dependent on the mother who is carrying the fetus, not on the father, and further that a child has to be in existence at the time of the injury in order to qualify for a dependency allowance. To buttress the latter argument they comment that even the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) was reluctant to address the issue of when life begins.
We do not think it necessary for us to invoke Supreme Court law commenting on state penal statutes and other state laws prescribing what steps need to be followed before a legal abortion may be performed. Our task is simply to interpret Sec. 31-308b. Sec. 1-1, C.G.S. tells us we must apply statutory language “according to the commonly approved usage of the language, and technical words and phrases, and such as have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law, shall be construed and understood accordingly.” The term “children” is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary at 217 (5th ed. 1979) as “Progeny; offspring of parentage. Unborn or recently born human being.” (emphasis ours). Therefore a construction of Sec. 31-308b permitting payment of dependency benefits to a child conceived before the date of injury but born afterwards is not violative of our statutory rules of statutory construction.
Such an interpretation complies with the long standing policy to construe the Workers’ Compensation Law so as to effect the broad humanitarian purpose of our act. Moreover, the interpretation is not radical or novel. Probate law for centuries has considered a child en ventre sa mere as existent. The Rule Against Perpetuities was based on a period measured by lives in being plus twenty one years plus a period of gestation.
The Fourth District decision is affirmed.
Commissioners Robin Waller and George Waldron concur.