Sometimes, we will meet with an injured worker who is already receiving PA workers’ compensation benefits. The injured worker may ask, “Why do I need to have an attorney if I am already receiving benefits?” The answer is that the rights of the injured worker in Pennsylvania can be impacted by inaction as much as by action. That paper which is disregarded can come back to haunt an injured worker for years.
An example of this situation came in Wingrove v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Allegheny Energy). Here, the employee injured his back in 2002. The injury was accepted as a “low back strain.” The injured worker continued to work until May 5, 2003, when he had lumbar surgery (it is amazing that workers’ comp is the only area where a person needs surgery for a “strain” – unless, perhaps, the workers’ comp insurance carrier accepted the injury as something less than it really was, of course).
In 2005, after the injured worker received total disability workers’ compensation benefits for 104 weeks (two years), an Impairment Rating Evaluation (IRE) was performed and a “whole body impairment rating” of 11% was found. As we have previously discussed, an IRE resulting in an impairment rating of less than 50% may result in a shifting of benefits from total to partial status. That is what happened here; the IRE was not challenged.