When one thinks of an “injury,” typically one is imagining a sudden physical incident. Maybe a roofer falls from a ladder. A nurse pulls her back positioning a patient. A machine operator catches a hand in a device. While these are certainly injuries we see in PA workers’ compensation, not…
We have discussed the role of Utilization Review (UR) both on our website and on our blog. This helps demonstrate how important this concept is in the Pennsylvania workers’ compensation system. As the Bureau’s Workers’ Compensation Automation and Integration System (WCAIS) takes an increasingly bigger role in the practice of…
Representing injured workers in Pennsylvania, we see many severe injuries. One condition which certainly belongs in this category is Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), otherwise known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). This debilitating condition has been discussed on our blog in the past. Since a hallmark of RSD/CRPS is incapacitating…
This seems to be the month for Average Weekly Wage (AWW) cases. If you have not been keeping up with our blog (first, shame on you! 😉 ), AWW is the calculation of an injured worker’s wages, which is used to determine the amount of workers’ compensation benefits the injured…
As we have discussed previously, the vast majority of folks working in Pennsylvania are covered by the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act. However, the calculation of wages, for the purposes of awarding workers’ comp benefits, can vary by the status of an employee. For example, a “seasonal” employee is treated differently…
With the recent decision by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to accept appeal in the Sladek case, and the multitude of cases in Commonwealth Court, litigation regarding the presumption of cancer in firefighters is a hot topic. One area which was not addressed, until the recent Commonwealth Court decision in…
A topic we frequently address, since it often becomes the subject of appellate decisions, is whether a worker is injured while in the scope and course of his or her job. Generally (outside the commuting issue), either the employee took a small, momentary departure from the job, or completely left…
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…