Back in August, 2016, we discussed the case of City of Philadelphia Fire Department v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Sladek). For those who do not recall, this was the case (well, one of several recent cases actually) which determined that a firefighter must prove the cancer he or she developed…
A threshold issue in a Pennsylvania workers’ compensation case is whether the person who was injured was actually an “employee.” This is an area we have addressed on this blog in the past. Recently, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania decided a case regarding this issue. In the matter of Department…
We have previously discussed the “coming and going rule” in Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation, where, essentially, an employee is not covered by the PA Workers’ Compensation Act if he or she is injured while on the commute to or from work. Like most legal rules, of course, there are exceptions. The…
Back in June, 2015, we discussed the Commonwealth Court decision in Duffey v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Trola-Dyne, Inc.). In this decision, which confounded us at the time, the Court said that an injured worker could not successfully expand the description of his or her work injury after an Impairment…
On our blog, we have previously discussed cases where the dispute in a case is whether an injured worker was actually engaged in his or her employment duties at the time of the injury (what we call the “scope and course” of their work). As you may have noticed, these…
As we have mentioned, workers’ compensation laws vary widely from State to State, making the selection of which workers’ compensation laws apply to a given case a critical determination. As much as there are things in PA law that benefit the workers’ comp insurance carrier, many aspects of Pennsylvania law…
As noted on our website, generally, an injured worker cannot sue his or her employer for its negligence in causing a work-related injury. Additionally, unlike in a negligence case, workers’ compensation benefits do not include payment for pain and suffering. Occasionally, however, there is another party (a “third party”) that…
To win a contested workers’ compensation case in Pennsylvania, the injured worker must prove that he or she suffered an injury while in the scope and course of employment and that he or she is disabled as a result of such injury. The situation only changes moderately when the injured…
When the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided Lewis v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board back in 2007, we attorneys who represent the injured worker thought things had really changed. No longer could the workers’ comp insurance carrier file Termination Petition after Termination Petition in an endless series to evade the payment…
There is an old saying in law that one only gets “one bite at the apple.” That means, basically, that you have a chance to file your claim or suit or whatever, litigate the issue and obtain a final decision. Once that is done, you can file an appeal of…