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Kelly v. City of Bridgeport12/5/2000
seeking to discern that intent, we look to the words of the statute itself, to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) General Motors Corp. v. Dohmann, 247 Conn. 274, 286, 722 A.2d 1205 (1998); Ferrigno v. Cromwell Development Associates, 244 Conn. 189, 195, 708 A.2d 1371 (1998). "As with any issue of statutory interpretation, our initial guide is the language of the operative statutory provisions." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fimiani v. Star Gallo Distributors, Inc., 248 Conn. 635, 641-42, 729 A.2d 212 (1999).
In this appeal, the city argues that § 31-284b does not require an employer to provide health insurance coverage to an employee receiving coverage for medical care and prescriptions after indemnity payments have ceased, and that the board therefore improperly affirmed the commissioner's conclusion that the city was obligated to provide health insurance coverage to the plaintiff and his family. We agree.
General Statutes (Rev. to 1991) § 31-284b (a), which was in effect at the time of the plaintiff's injury , provides in relevant part: "In order to maintain, as nearly as possible, the income of employees who suffer employment-related injuries, any employer . . . who provides accident and health insurance or life insurance coverage for any employee . . . shall provide to such employee equivalent insurance coverage . . . while the employee is eligible to receive or is receiving workers' compensation payments pursuant to this chapter, or while the employee is receiving wages under a provision for sick leave payments for time lost due to an employment related injury." (Emphasis added.) The city argues that § 31-284b (a) benefits are triggered during periods of time when an injured employee is receiving or entitled to receive "compensation payments . . . or . . . wages under a provision for sick leave payments for time lost due to an employment related injury." The city claims that the meaning of "compensation payments" as used in the statute must be limited to indemnity payments, or those payments for time lost due to an employment-related injury. Once those payments cease, even though the claimant is covered under § 7-433c for physician's visits and prescribed medication related to the injury, the employer is no longer obligated to provide group health insurance providing dental and vision benefits and life insurance for the claimant and his family.
The board, in affirming the decision of the commissioner, held that the commissioner correctly ruled "that although the claimant was not currently receiving indemnity benefits, the medical bills being paid by the city constituted compensation benefits. Thus, the claimant was receiving or eligible to receive compensation payments within the meaning of § 31-284b." (Emphasis added.) In so concluding, the board relied on a definition of compensation from General Statutes § 31-293 because neither § 31-284b nor General Statutes (Rev. to 1991) § 31-275, the general definitional section for the Workers' Compensation Act, contained such a definition. The board stated that " t the time of the claimant's injury, § 31-293 stated that he word compensation, as used in this section, shall be construed to include not only incapacity payments to an injured employee and payments to the dependents of a deceased employee, but also sums paid out for surgical, medical and hospital services to an injured employee . . . ." (Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) The board recognized that Public Acts 1991, N
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