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MAZZONE v. CONNECTICUT TRANSIT COMPANY5/13/1997
The principal issue in this appeal is the compensability, under the Workers' Compensation Act (act), of an injury to an employee that occurred on an employer's premises during an unpaid lunch break. The claimant, Louis Mazzone, appealed from a decision of the compensation review board (review board) that had affirmed the decision of the workers' compensation
commissioner (commissioner) denying the claimant's application for workers' compensation benefits. We transferred the claimant's appeal from the Appellate Court to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199 (c). We reverse the decision of the review board and remand the case for further evidentiary proceedings.
The commissioner found the following facts, which are not disputed. The claimant is employed by the defendant, the Connecticut Transit Company, as a heavy duty mechanic. At the time of his injury, the claimant was assigned to work the day shift and was allotted, as part of that shift, an unpaid thirty-five minute lunch period, extending from 11:55 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. During this lunch period, the claimant was required to "punch out" on the time clock. Although the defendant provided a small lunchroom for its employees, the claimant and several of his coworkers usually chose to eat their lunches in unoccupied, out of service buses parked on the defendant's premises. The defendant was aware of this practice.
During his lunch break on the day of his injury, the claimant and his coworkers were eating their lunches in one such out of service bus. After inadvertently spilling milk, the claimant attempted to exit the bus in order to obtain a paper towel. While he was descending the rear steps of the bus, he fell to the pavement and was injured. As a result of these injuries, the claimant submitted a claim for workers' compensation benefits. See General Statutes § 31-294c (a) (establishing procedure for submission of claim).
Following an evidentiary hearing, the commissioner determined that the claimant's injuries were not compensable
under the act. In so ruling, the commissioner drew two critical conclusions from the facts found: first, that, at the time of his injury, the claimant "was off the time clock and free to leave" and, therefore, not within the period of employment; and second, that the claimant "was not doing anything while on his lunch break in furtherance of the employer's business or incidental to it." The claimant appealed from the commissioner's decision to the review board; see General Statutes § 31-301; which, on the basis of the facts found by the commissioner, affirmed the commissioner's decision. In its written decision, the review board restated the commissioner's key conclusions and determined that those conclusions were not contrary to the law establishing eligibility for workers' compensation. See McNamara v. Hamden, 176 Conn. 547, 550-51, 398 A.2d 1161 (1979). This appeal followed.
On appeal, without challenging the factual findings made by the commissioner, the parties dispute the propriety of the review board's legal conclusion that the claimant had failed to establish a compensable injury. A close examination of the record reveals that, in accordance with the applicable law of compensation eligibility, this broad compensability issue turns on the resolution of three narrower questions: (1) whether the claimant was within the period of his employment during the unpaid lunch break taken on the defendant's premises; (2) whether the claimant, by choosing to eat lunch on an out of service bus, was in a place in which he reasonably was entitled to have been; and (3) whether the claimant, in eating lunch, was engaged
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