The Appellate Court of Connecticut ruled Tuesday that a retired police officer was improperly awarded temporary total disability benefits because he had no intention of returning to the workforce at the time he filed for the additional benefits.
Louis Martinoli began working for the Stamford Police Department in 1975 and later underwent surgery based on a compensable heart disease claim filed in 1999.
Although Mr. Martinoli didn’t intend to return to work, he filed a claim for temporary total disability benefits in 2015 after suffering atrial fibrillation and a stroke, according to court documents. The comp commissioner ruled the condition “flowed from the underlying accepted claims of hypertension, coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure.”
The Stamford Police Department contested the claim, arguing that to award temporary total disability benefits to a retiree who doesn’t intend to work again “leads to an unreasonable or bizarre result,” according to the appellate ruling.
The appellate court said in its ruling that the comp commissioner wrongly accepted the claim and that the comp board erred in upholding the determination. It remanded the case back to the comp board with instructions to reverse the comp commissioner’s compensability determination.