Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Lawyer Blog

Once an injured worker proves an entitlement to workers’ compensation benefits in PA, only certain things allow a Pennsylvania workers’ comp insurance company to stop paying those benefits.   Some of the more common things would be convincing a Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ) that the injured worker has fully recovered, has returned to working at pre-injury wages, or has left the labor market for reasons unrelated to the work injury.  Another basis for the stoppage of workers’ compensation benefits in PA is incarceration.

Under Section 306(a.1) of the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act (Act), “Nothing in this act shall require payment of compensation under clause (a) or (b) for any period during which the employe is incarcerated after a conviction . . . “  While this sounds simple, as with many things, there can be disagreements on the application.

Recently, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued a decision in the case of Sadler v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Philadelphia Coca-Cola).  Here, the injured worker was receiving PA workers’ compensation benefits.  He was charged with a crime, and could not afford bail.  As such, he was incarcerated.  This, of course, would not allow a stoppage of workers’ comp benefits, since the incarceration did not come “after a conviction.”

Several years ago, we related that the Pennsylvania legislature passed Act 46, which created a presumption that cancer suffered by veteran firefighters is related to their work duties.  This amendment to the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act was largely cheered by all (other than workers’ comp insurers, of course!).  The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania explained the presumption threshold as:

“(A) firefighter-claimant asserting a cancer claim under Section 108(r) of the Act, 77 P.S. §27.1(r), must first establish that he was diagnosed with a type of cancer possibly caused by one or more IARC Group 1 carcinogens.”

As with any legislation, there were differences in how the law should be interpreted.  Certainly, we have had litigation regarding the types of cancer involved.  But, another area of confusion developed due to the difference in how the law treats career firefighters, as opposed to volunteer firefighters.  We discussed the 2017 decision of the Commonwealth Court in Steele v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Findlay Township) previously in our blog.  The dispute in that case boiled down to the requirement that a volunteer firefighter must prove exposure to the carcinogen through reports filed under the Pennsylvania Fire Information Reporting System (PennFIRS).

As we discuss in our FAQs on our website, not every person who works in the State of Pennsylvania is covered by the PA Workers’ Compensation Act (Act).  Certain categories of employees are excluded from the protections of the Act for various reasons.  One of those exclusions applies to those employed in “domestic service.” This area was recently addressed by the Commonwealth Court of PA.

In Van Leer v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Hudson), the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania was faced with a case where the injured worker was employed as a caretaker for a woman suffering from mild dementia.  The patient with the dementia was the only person in the household.  Though the case did not address how, the injured worker suffered very significant injuries.

A Claim Petition was filed and litigated before a Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ).  After hearing the testimony of the injured worker, the WCJ made the following Findings of Fact:

When an injured worker in PA gets medical treatment for his or her work injury, and a bill is submitted to the workers’ compensation insurance carrier, the insurance carrier has three choices.  They can pay the bill (within 30 days), initiate the Utilization Review process (to challenge whether the treatment is reasonable and necessary), or it can dispute relatedness by filing a Petition to Review Medical Treatment.  Or, it would seem, there is a fourth option – just ignore the bills.  This one, however, often ends poorly for the workers’ comp insurance carrier.

Recently, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued a decision in Mason v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Philadelphia AFL-CIO Hospital Association and Rodriguez), where this issue was addressed.  It is important to note, right from the start, that this is an “unreported” decision.  Previously on this blog, we mentioned that “unreported” decisions are not binding on a Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ), but can be persuasive and are still sometimes helpful to see how the Court views an issue.

In this case, the injured worker twisted his low back while doing his job.  The injury was accepted as “low back strain.”  The injured worker began to receive medical treatment, and the providers coded the bills for diagnoses of “lumbosacral strain/sprain, lumbosacral radiculopathy, and lumbar HNP (herniated nucleus pulposus).”  The workers’ compensation insurance company elected to not pay the medical bills, taking the position that the injured worker did not prove the work injury consisted of more than a low back strain.  Since the treatment was for diagnoses other than the accepted diagnosis, the insurance carrier felt the medical treatment was unrelated to the work injury.

In litigating a workers’ compensation case in Pennsylvania, we fight about many aspects of a case.  Certainly, we have had disputes over when an injured worker was actually “disabled” from his or her job. As highlighted in a recent decision by the Commonwealth Court of PA, though, sometimes the exact date on which disability begins can have great consequence.

In Valley Stairs and Rails v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Parsons), the injured worker hurt his back while performing his job, and was taken to the hospital by ambulance, on Friday, March 27, 2015.  The employer paid him for the day of the injury, on the paystub calling it “COMP TM.”

On April 13, 2015, the workers’ compensation insurance carrier filed a Notice of Temporary Compensation Payable (NTCP).  As we have previously discussed in our blog, this document allows an insurance carrier to begin to pay workers’ compensation benefits while still investigating a claim.  The NTCP is valid for a maximum of 90 days (if it is not revoked within those 90 days, it converts into a full Notice of Compensation Payable (NCP), which cannot be revoked).  If the NTCP is revoked within those 90 days, the claim can be denied in full.