On October 17, the Pennsylvania Senate signed the previously approved House Bill 1840, known as the “Protz Workers’ Compensation Legislative Fix,” which is expected to be signed into law by Governor Tom Wolf within the next several days. Why is a “Protz Fix” necessary? Employers in Pennsylvania suffered a major blow, when the Impairment Rating provisions of Act 57, were invalidated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the 2017 case of Protz v. WCAB.…

The Commonwealth Court issued several interesting “unreported memorandum opinions” in the past several weeks.  The Court revised its Internal Operating Rule 414 several years ago, allowing unreported or unpublished opinions to be cited and relied upon by counsel, for persuasive value, but not as binding precedent in future cases.  Thus, it is sometimes important to pay attention to unreported cases, which the Court has chosen not to circulate more broadly, to advance arguments and defenses…

The first cases addressing the impact of Pennsylvania’s Construction Workplace Misclassification Act (“CWMA”) in the context of the Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Compensation Act, have finally reached the Appellate Courts. The CWMA, which became effective on February 10, 2011, imposes criminal and administrative penalties for the misclassification of employees as “independent contractors” at commercial and residential construction sites in Pennsylvania. “Construction” is broadly defined to include “erection, reconstruction, demolition, alteration, modification, custom fabrication, building assembly, site prep…

Picture this.  You have just settled a problem workers’ compensation case and you or your carrier have disbursed settlement checks totaling $100,000 in exchange for a full and complete compromise and release of “any and all past, present and/or future benefits, including but not limited to, wage loss benefits, disfigurement benefits, medical benefits, or any other monies of any kind including, but not limited to, interest, costs, attorney’s fee and or penalties for or in…

Prior to June 20, 2017, a powerful tool was available to employers and workers’ compensation carriers to cap exposure on long term workers’ compensation claims.  That tool, provided by the Act 44 amendments in 1996, was called an impairment rating evaluation (IRE) and generally worked like this: once a claimant had received 104 weeks of total disability benefits and had reached maximum medical improvement, the employer could request an IRE.  A doctor was assigned to…

Employers often shy away from discharging employees for disciplinary reasons when those employees are receiving workers’ compensation benefits, such as in instances where the employee is working a modified duty assignment.  However, such employees can and should be held to the same standards as other employees, including compliance with applicable policies and procedures.  Additionally, so long as the discharge is found to be related to the disciplinary violation, any subsequent loss of earnings will be…