City of Bridgeport

Pursuant to a provision of the Workers' Compensation Act (§ 31-291), ''[w]hen any principal employer procures any work to be done wholly or in part for him by a contractor, or through him by a subcontractor, and the work so procured to be done is a part or process in the trade or business of such principal employer, and is performed in, on or about premises under his control, such principal employer shall be liable to pay all compensation . . . to the same extent as if the work were done without the intervention of such contractor or subcontractor.'' The defendants city of Bridgeport and its insurer, P Co., appealed from the decision of the Compensation Review Board, which affirmed the decision of the Workers' Compensation Commissioner, who had found that the city was the plaintiff's principal employer and, therefore, liable for the plaintiff's workers' compensation benefits. The plaintiff had been employed by H Co., an uninsured subcontractor of the city, when he was injured while doing repair work to the roof of the city's transfer facility. The plaintiff sought workers' compensation benefits, and, fol- lowing a hearing, the commissioner found that, because he was an employee of an uninsured subcontractor when he suffered his compensa- ble injury, the Second Injury Fund was statutorily (§ 31-355) required to pay his workers' compensation benefits. The Second Injury Fund subsequently contested liability on the ground that, pursuant to § 31- 291, the city was the plaintiff's principal employer when he suffered his injury and, therefore, was required to pay the workers' compensation benefits owed to him. Following additional hearings, the commissioner determined that, under Massolini v. Driscoll (114 Conn. 546), a munici- pality can be held liable as a principal employer under § 31-291, that the city had a statutory (§ 7-148) duty to manage, maintain, and repair its property, including the transfer facility, and that repairing the transfer facility's roof was a part