Connecticut 2021 2021 Regular Session

Connecticut Senate Bill SB00907 Comm Sub / Analysis

Filed 07/21/2021

                    O F F I C E O F L E G I S L A T I V E R E S E A R C H 
P U B L I C A C T S U M M A R Y 
 
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PA 21-18—SB 907 
Labor and Public Employees Committee 
 
AN ACT CONCERNING MI NOR AND TECHNICAL CH ANGES TO THE 
WORKERS' COMPENSATIO N ACT 
 
SUMMARY: This act makes various minor and technical changes in the 
workers’ compensation statutes. It: 
1. retitles the workers’ compensation commissioners as “administrative law 
judges” in state statutes and in any public acts from the 2021 legislative 
session (§ 1); 
2. reduces the frequency with which the workers’ compensation 
commission’s advisory board must meet from twice to once each quarter 
(among other things, the board helps evaluate the performance of the 
administrative law judges and advises on the physicians available to 
examine injured workers (§ 2); 
3. eliminates a requirement that the commission’s statistical division be 
administered by a full-time, salaried director appointed by the Workers’ 
Compensation Commission’s chairperson (§ 3); 
4. eliminates a requirement that the audio recordings of formal hearings 
provided to parties be on cassette (§ 4); 
5. eliminates obsolete provisions about (a) the transfer of certain cases to the 
Second Injury Fund (which has not been allowed since 1995) (§§ 5-7); (b) 
a medical panel of occupational lung disease physicians (which has not 
met since the 1980s) (§ 8); and (c) the destruction of old workers’ 
compensation agreements filed in Superior Court (which has been 
obsolete since the creation of the Compensation Review Division in 1980 
and the subsequent Compensation Review Board) (§ 8); 
6. eliminates a provision that placed the Workers’ Compensation 
Commission within the Department of Labor for administrative purposes 
only (§ 8); and 
7. makes technical and conforming changes. 
EFFECTIVE DATE:  October 1, 2021