CRB Opinions & Annotations

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Within Connecticut's workers' compensation system, one or more parties to a disputed claim for workers' compensation benefits may appeal the decision of an Administrative Law Judge of the Workers' Compensation Commission rendered after that Judge has heard the case at a lower-level Formal Hearing. Such appeals are usually heard by the Commission's appellate body, the Compensation Review Board (also known as the CRB).

In a small number of cases, parties may appeal an Opinion issued by the CRB to either the state's Appellate Court or to the state's Supreme Court. In very rare instances an appeal may go directly before one of these courts without first being heard by the CRB.

Case Law

When the CRB issues a decision — formally called an Opinion — it is one example of what's called "case law." Decisions issued by the state's Appellate and Supreme Courts are also examples of case law. There is a hierarchy to how law and case law are applied to the individual facts of workers' compensation cases. Statutes always outrank regulations, which always outrank case law. Case law, however, does take a higher precedence over decisions issued from lower-level Commission hearings.

Compensation Review Board

The Compensation Review Board is the appellate body enacted by statute in 1980 to hear appeals in workers' compensation cases, and it is situated within the Workers' Compensation Commission. Each year a very small fraction of the many cases heard by the Commission are appealed to the CRB, usually just a few dozen. Three of the sixteen Workers' Compensation Administrative Law Judges serve on the Compensation Review Board on a rotating basis. The Commission Chairman sits as the head of the Board during his or her entire tenure as Chairman, and he or she chooses two other Judges to hear the appeals for a year-long appointment each.

CRB Hearing Calendars

The CRB holds appellate hearings monthly, and through the left navigation on this page the Commission provides calendars of these monthly CRB hearings.

CRB Opinions

CRB Opinions can also be accessed through the left-side navigation. This site presently contains more than 2,800 Opinions issued by the Board from 1993 to the present. As new Opinions are issued, they will be posted here. The Commission is also working on filling in Opinions issued from the beginning of the CRB in 1980 to those we presently have online, in order to provide a complete body of case law for the citizens of Connecticut.

Annotations

There are approximately 6,000 annotations to CRB Opinions, also available through this page's left-side navigation. These are one- or two-paragraph summaries of CRB Opinions and, where possible, Annotations link directly to the Opinions they summarize.