Opinion
CASE NO. 730 CRD-1-88-5
JANUARY 5, 1990
The claimant was represented by Thomas M. Libbos, Esq., and Katherine Lamondi, Esq., Friedman Libbos.
The respondents were represented by Kevin Maher, Esq., Maher Williams.
This Petition for Review from the April 26, 1988 Finding and Award of the Commissioner for the First District was heard June 23, 1989 before a Compensation Review Division panel consisting of the Commission Chairman, John Arcudi, and Commissioners Michael S. Sherman, A. Thomas White, Jr.
Claimant's appeal from the First District corrected April 26, 1988 Finding and Award, seeks benefits in addition to those granted. The trial commissioner found that claimant had suffered exposure to a chemical herbicide. On October 26, 1983, while at work he had been doused with the chemical products, Lasso and Atrazine, when a hose split thereby spraying him with the substances. Some of the chemical was sprayed in the eyes and on the skin, causing irritation. The eye and skin irritation required medical treatment and resulted in some disability.
Claimant alleges the commissioner should have also found that the October 1983 accident caused loss of vision, headaches, decreased libido, loss of taste and smell, memory loss, seizure-like episodes, blackouts and sudden mood changes and permanent disability. The trial commissioner ruled that claimant failed to meet the burden of proof that those complaints were causally connected to the work-related chemical. exposure. Apart from his arguments directed to the five evidentiary hearings, claimant further cites as error the commissioner's denial of the Motion to Submit Additional Evidence.
Whether the conditions claimed were proximately caused by the compensable injury presented factual issues determinable the trial commissioner. Metall v. Aluminum Co. of America, 154 Conn. 48 (1966).
This conclusion, that a causal connection was not proven, is essentially one of fact to be determined in view of all of the relevant circumstances unless it is one which could not reasonably or logically be reached on the subordinate facts. It must be tested by the subordinate facts and must stand unless it resulted from an incorrect application of law to them or because of an inference illogically or unreasonably drawn from them. (citations omitted)
Id. at 52. See also, Besade v. Interstate Security Services, 212 Conn. 441, 448-9 (1989), citing Fair v People's Savings Bank, 207 Conn. 535, 539 (1989).
To buttress his arguments claimant presented extensive evidence by lay witnesses and medical experts. Subsequent to the Commissioner's April 26 ruling on the evidence thus presented, counsel on May 27 submitted Claimants' Motion to Correct the Finding and Award. That motion sought to add one hundred and twenty-seven additional findings to the forty-five previously found. Appended to each requested finding were relevant evidential excerpts from the hearing transcripts and the documentary evidence. These evidentiary excerpts included testimony, communications of and references to Dr. Lewis Pepper, Dr. Louis Reik, Dr. Faye Heisler, Dr. Dhiredra S. Bana, Dr. Judith K. Marquis, Dr. Corneluis Toner and Dr. Mark J. Mullan. Two of these doctors, Dr. Corneluis A. Toner and Dr. Mark J. Mullan, had not directly related the additionally claimed disabilities to the October 26 work accident. The other five in some manner or another had related those conditions to the accident. The commissioner on September granted seventy in toto and five more in part, denying fifty-two of the one hundred twenty-seven findings requested. Thus the Finding as corrected on September 28 now contains one hundred and twenty paragraphs. However despite the seventy-five additional findings, the ultimate conclusion that claimant had failed to meet the burden of proof as to the claimed additional disabilities remained unchanged.
While we may well have reached a different conclusion and given more weight to those doctors' opinions which found a causal relationship, that decision is not one for us to make. The trial commissioner heard the witnesses. He was in position to determine the weight and reliability of the testimony presented. After his initial decision, he exhaustively reanalyzed all the testimony, medical and ray, as he had to do to consider each of the one hundred and twenty seven findings requested. On such reexamination he actually granted sixty per cent of the corrections. Our power as an appellate tribunal is limited; it is analogous to that of the Supreme Court or the Appellate Court in correcting the finding of a trial court. Rivera v. Guida's Dairy, 167 Conn. 524 (1975) (per curiam) Balkus v. Terry Steam Turbine Co., Conn. 170 (1974): Jacques v. H.O. Penn Machinery Co., 166 Conn. 352 (1974).
The conclusions as to compensability sought by the claimant were not undisputed material facts. As stated by Fair, supra, 539 the conclusions requested are actually in the nature of inferences drawn from the basic facts found. "No reviewing court can then se, aside that inference because the opposite one is thought to be more reasonable; nor can the opposite inference be substituted. . . because of a belief that the one chosen. . . is factually questionable." Id, 539-540.
Similar principles prevail in our considering the commissioner's denial of Claimant's Motion to Submit Additional Evidence. A trial commissioner must be granted considerable latitude in decisions on such motions. Brusca v. Color Tech, Inc., 3 Conn. Workers Comp. Rev. Op. 81, 50 CRD-7-81 (1986). Given our examination of the entire record and especially in view of the trier's thorough examination of that same voluminous record, we cannot hold that the failure to permit additional evidence was an abuse of discretion.
We therefore affirm the First District April 26, 1988 Finding and Award.
Commissioners Michael S. Sherman and A. Thomas White, Jr. concur.