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Hill v. State Employees Retirement Commission6/29/2004
Under specified circumstances, General Statutes § 5-192p authorizes the state employees retirement commission (commission) to grant a disability retirement pension to a person in state service. An applicant who has been in state service for less than ten years is entitled to such a pension only if the applicant has suffered a disability that is service connected. To determine the requisite service connection, the retirement commission is directed by § 5-192p (f) to utilize the expertise of the state medical examining board (medical board). The principal issue in this case is whether a pension applicant who is disappointed by an adverse decision of the medical board has a right to review by the commission to determine whether, as a matter of law, the medical board was precluded from making an independent determination of service connection in light of earlier workers' compensation proceedings arising out of the same facts. We affirm the judgment of the trial court dismissing the pension applicant's administrative appeal, but we do so on grounds other than those on which the court relied.
The plaintiff, Bruce Hill, filed an appeal in the Superior Court from a declaratory ruling by the defendant commission, which had denied his request for service connected disability retirement benefits. The commission based its ruling on a finding by the medical board that the plaintiff had not established that his injury was service connected. He alleged that he was nonetheless entitled to such benefits because he had been injured in an accident that, in workers' compensation proceedings, had been determined to be service connected. In light of that determination, the plaintiff maintained that the doctrine of collateral estoppel precluded the medical board from making a contrary finding and required the commission to grant his application for disability retirement benefits.
The trial court upheld the commission's denial of the plaintiff's pension application. It agreed with the commission that the governing statute conferred exclusive authority on the medical board to determine whether an employee's injury was service connected, a predicate for entitlement to disability retirement benefits. Concluding that the commission lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the merits of the medical board's finding, the court dismissed the plaintiff's appeal.
In his appeal to this court, the plaintiff maintains that the trial court improperly failed (1) to overrule the commission's determination that it lacked jurisdiction to review the medical board's finding that he failed to prove that his injury was service connected, (2) to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel and (3) to protect his constitutional right to due process. Because each of these issues raises a question of law, our review is plenary. See, e.g., DaCruz v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., 268 Conn. 675, 686, 846 A.2d 849 (2004) (collateral estoppel); State v. Long, 268 Conn. 508, 520-21, 847 A.2d 862 (2004) (due process); Lundborg v. Lawler, 63 Conn. App. 451, 455, 776 A.2d 519 (2001) (subject matter jurisdiction). Although we agree with the plain-tiff's jurisdictional claim, we disagree with his collateral estoppel and due process claims. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. See Favorite v. Miller, 176 Conn. 310, 317, 407 A.2d 974 (1978) (" here the trial court reaches a correct decision but on mistaken grounds, [the Supreme] court has repeatedly sustained the trial court's action if proper grounds exist to support it").
To evaluate the plaintiff's arguments, we must review the factual record and the procedural history of this case. There is no dispute about either one.
The pla
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