3/20/2006
Recently, Jim Burn of our law firm successfully argued a case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and had a very harsh standard removed from certain types of cases in the Workers' Compensation system. The Court has now eased the burden of proof for Claimants in cases of "mental/physical" injuries. Mental/physical injuries are also described as injuries which occur when a mental stimulus at work causes a trauma that produces physical results. For example, if an individual at work witnesses a traumatic or shocking event and suffers a heart attack, that would be a mental/physical injury.
The case we won was the case of Panyko v. WCAB (U.S. Airways), A.2d.(Pa. 2005){2005 Pa. LEXIS 3102}. In the Panyko case, our client suffered a heart attack after having an argument with his supervisor. We had initially won before the Judge. However, on an appeal by the Employer, the Commonwealth Court held that for anyone to be successful in mental/physical cases, it is needed to be proven that the mental stimulus was caused by an abnormal working event. This essentially obliterated these types of cases across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We now would have had to prove that the argument with the supervisor, which admittedly can occur in any work setting, was an abnormal working condition. Therefore, our client was not entitled to benefits. We continued to fight for our client and took this case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Before the Supreme Court, we argued that this abnormal working condition standard was unfairly being applied to mental/physical cases, making injured workers who deserved benefits ineligible to receive them. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with us.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reinstated the initial decision by the Judge and granted benefits to our client. The rule now is that an injured worker, such as our client in this case, needs to only demonstrate that the mental stimulus at work caused the physical injury. No additional "abnormal working condition standard" needs to be met.
This is a significant victory for injured workers throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The bar had been raised with the addition of the abnormal working condition standard, making such claims virtually impossible to successfully litigate. Now, if an injured worker suffers a physical injury which has been caused by mental stimulus at work, they need to only prove a connection, and no additional unfair burdens are placed upon them.
» back
