CASE NO. 1264 CRD-7-91-7Workers’ Compensation Commission
MAY 15, 1992
The claimant was represented by Robert J. Guendelsberger, Esq., Guendelsberger Associates.
The respondent employer was represented by Philip F. Spillane, Esq., Baker, Moots Pelligrini.
This Petition for Review from the July 2, 1991 Finding and Order of the Commissioner for the Seventh District was heard December 13, 1991 before a Compensation Review Division panel consisting of the Commission Chairman, John Arcudi and Commissioners A. Thomas White, Jr. and George Waldron.
OPINION
JOHN ARCUDI, CHAIRMAN.
In this case the Seventh District ruling was issued July 2, 1991. On July 15, 1991 the claimant filed in the Seventh District office (1) a Motion for Extension of Time to File Appeal and (2) a Motion to Correct Finding and Order. Both these pleadings on their face were dated July 12, 1991. A Petition for Review dated July 25, 1991 was filed July 29, 1991 in the same office. The trial commissioner by letter dated July 23, 1991 stated the following:
Section 31-301 requires an appeal to the Compensation Review Division to be filed within ten (10) days after entry of the award by the Commissioner. You have not filed with this office a Petition for Review of my July 2, 1991 Finding and Order within ten (10) days after the date of said Finding and Order. I am without power to grant you an extension of the time in which to file such an appeal, and will therefore take no action on the motion referred to in Paragraph No. 1 above [i.e. the Motion for Extension of Time to File Appeal]. Since no timely appeal was filed, your Motion to Correct . . . does not lie.
Claimant urges us to adopt the “mailbox rule”, i.e. if the document is mailed on a certain date, then it is filed on that date. Sec. 31-301 states: “At any time within ten days after entry of such award by the commissioner, . . . either party may appeal therefrom . . . by filing in the office of the commissioner . . .” In the first two decisions issued in 1980 by the new Compensation Review Division this argument was considered. Golob v. State of Connecticut, 1 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 3, 4-CRD-2-79 (1980); Ilewicz v. State of Connecticut, 1 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 5, 10-CRD-2-80
(1980). We stated, Ilewicz, supra, at 6, “[W]e think that the statutory language, `filing in the office of the Commissioner . . . within ten days’, means just that, whether the filing be by mail or otherwise. Failure to have the appeal . . . in the office of the Commissioner within ten days is fatal to the appellant’s cause.” There is no reason here presented to change that holding.
Our supreme court held in Rapid Motor Lines, Inc. v. Cox, 134 Conn. 235, 238-39 (1947) that statutory notice requirements were not satisfied when a plaintiff “mailed” his complaint on the final day upon which notice was to be given.
The Court stated:
The plaintiff has cited no authority for its contention . . . . that the analogy of the rule in contracts that the mailing of an offeree’s acceptance of an offeror’s offer may be effective to close a contract is reason for holding that the plaintiff’s mailing of the notice here is effective to satisfy the statute. The rule that the deposit in the mail of an acceptance of an offer is ordinarily sufficient is grounded upon the fact that under the particular circumstances acceptance in that manner was in the contemplation of the parties. (citations omitted). In the case of the statute, there is no place for the operation of that rule.
Rapid Motor Lines, Inc. supra, at 239. See also, Starr v. Vigo, No. H 9108-61918 (Super.Ct. Oct. 11, 1991).
Trinkley v. Ella Grasso Regional Center, 220 Conn. 739, 743
(1992) and our own case, Ward v. Chesebrough-Ponds, Inc., 1161 CRD-7-91-1 (5/8/92), both issued after the date of oral argument in this matter, do not necessitate any change in the Golob and Ilewicz or the Rapid Motor Lines reasoning. In those cases the appeal was filed in substantial compliance with the statute on the tenth day in a Commission office.
We therefore affirm the commissioner’s decision and dismiss claimant’s appeal.
Commissioners A. Thomas White, Jr. and George Waldron concur.