Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Lawyer Blog

Before Labor Market Surveys (LMS)/Earning Power Assessments (EPA), workers’ comp insurance carriers in PA used to actually have to prove a specific job was available to an injured worker in order to modify or suspend workers’ compensation benefits. This changed in the 1996 amendments to the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, but any injured worker who was hurt before the amendments took place continues to fall under the “Old Act.”

In those cases, and even in LMS/EPA cases these days, the litigation starts with an Independent Medical Examination (IME), better, and more accurately, known as a “Defense Medical Examination.” Once some doctor releases the injured worker to some kind of work, the workers’ comp insurance carrier can start the vocational process (whether that be LMS/EPA, or the “Old Act” job referrals). But, when is a medical release too old, or stale, to be used?

In Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Guyders), the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania addressed this issue. This was an “Old Act” case, so the injured worker was sent on 73 job referrals (yes, you read that right, 73 – apparently, the workers’ comp insurance company does not know the meaning of the word “overkill.”)

The workers’ compensation insurance carrier filed a Petition to Modify or Suspend, based on the 73 job referrals. All were approved by the IME physician, who saw the injured worker, just one time, in 2003. Over the time from 2003 to 2006, the 73 jobs were referred to the injured worker. The vocational expert hired by the injured worker said a medical examination becomes outdated in six months to a year. The Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ) found both Claimant and her vocational expert credible, and dismissed any job referrals made more than six months after the date of the IME. This was affirmed by the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (WCAB).

On appeal, the Commonwealth Court of PA reversed. Though the Court agreed the WCJ is the ultimate finder of fact (and determiner of credibility), the Court then, in effect, dismissed the WCJ’s determination of credibility regarding the injured worker’s vocational expert. The Court found that there is no standard that an IME is outdated or stale after six months, and that an opinion of a vocational counselor otherwise was outside his scope of expertise.
Respectfully, we must disagree. The opinion of the claimant’s vocational counselor was offered not as a medical expert, but as a vocational expert. If that opinion was that a medical examination needs to be within six months to a year of the job referrals, in his vocational opinion, that, to us, is a valid vocational expert’s opinion. Once found by the WCJ to be credible, we believe, the Court had no right to usurp the authority of the WCJ in this respect. The Court also chided the WCJ for taking the six month end of the statement, when the vocational expert said six months to a year. Again, the law in PA is clear that a WCJ can accept the testimony of any expert, in whole or in part. It is bad enough the legislature appears determined to narrow the workers’ comp system unfairly in PA, for the Courts to follow suit is a real shame.

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, reported by the Associated Press, found that amateur athletes (and by extension, victims of work injuries in PA), who have torn the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in their knee, actually do better by trying to rehab the knee before trying the surgical route.

According to the article, less than half of those in the study needed the ACL surgically repaired within two years. It appears the rehabilitation, alone, was enough in those cases.
"It seems that if you start out with rehabilitation only ... you have a good chance of ending up with an equally good outcome as if you had early ACL surgery," said Richard Frobell, of Lund University Hospital in Sweden, an author of the work.

While all situations in medicine are different, depending on the particular patient, and other factors, this article certainly suggests that an injured worker with an ACL tear should be in no rush to undergo surgery on his or her knee.

In an earlier blog entry, we discussed the 2009 decision by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Cinram Manufacturing v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Hill). This case discussed the procedure for amending a Notice of Compensation Payable (NCP).

The Court, in Cinram, decided that a “corrective amendment” (a condition which was present at the time of the injury and was erroneously left off the NCP) was to be treated differently than a “subsequently-arising” or “consequential” condition (a diagnosis not present at the time of the injury, but rather developed after the date of the injury). In the former, a Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ) can amend the NCP at any time any type of Petition is being litigated. On the other hand, in the latter, the injured worker must actually file a Petition to Review to achieve an amendment to the NCP.

An issue left open in Cinram was the appropriate “statute of limitations” in either of these situations. This issue has now been addressed, by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, in Fitzgibbons v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (City of Philadelphia). In this decision, the Court found there to be no difference between the two situations for statute of limitations purposes.

Whether the requested amendment to the NCP is a “corrective amendment” or a “subsequently-arising” or “consequential” condition, it now appears the injured worker must file their Petition within three years of the date of the most recent payment of workers’ compensation wage loss benefits. Failure to file a Petition within those three years may make such a Petition then barred in the future.

For the injured worker who does the right thing, and goes back to work, perhaps at modified or light duty, this may represent a trap of sorts. For example, Ms. Fitzgibbons was injured in 1997, and went back to work (at no loss in wages) in 1998. The workers’ compensation insurance carrier accepted the injury only as “epicondylitis of the left elbow.” In 2002, Ms. Fitzgibbons filed Petitions to Review (alleging she also hurt her neck, low back, left hip, leg and knee in the 1997 injury), and Reinstate (alleging she was now disabled by all of these injuries).

The Court found that her Petition to Review must fail, as she waited more than three years from the date of the last payment of compensation to file the Petition. So, while the Petition to Reinstate was timely (filed within the 500 week allotment), it too must fail, because the injury causing the disability was not that accepted by the NCP. Yet another example of how the unwary can fall victim due to the intricacies of the PA Workers’ Compensation Act.