Last legislative session, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives introduced H.B. 2664, which sought to add a new subsection to the Workers’ Compensation Act addressing post-traumatic stress disorders in certain first responders.  That Bill never made it out of committee, but that’s not the end of the story.

Last month, H.B. 432 was introduced.  Like it’s

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

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  The Court revised its Internal Operating Rule 414 several years ago, allowing unreported or unpublished opinions to be cited and relied upon by counsel, for persuasive value, but not as binding precedent in future cases.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

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

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

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

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

As a general rule, an employee who is injured while commuting to or from work is not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, as the injuries are not deemed to be “in the course and scope of employment” by virtue of the longstanding “going and coming rule.”  There are exceptions to the rule, including: (1) situations

The use of temporary employees provided by agencies that supply laborers, secretaries, nurses or other skilled or unskilled workers to the public and private sector is increasing. Employers who use these temporary agency workers’ must be wary of the relationships created by the use of the temporary agency workers. Are the temporary workers “employed” by

On May 11, 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) finalized a recordkeeping and reporting rule that will require covered employers to take the additional step of electronically submitting to OSHA, injury and illness information that is required to be maintained under existing OSHA regulations.  The rule becomes effective January 1, 2017.

The new