Case Name: BUDD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (BRADLEY), Respondent
Court: Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1992-01-07
Citations: 144 Pa. Commw. 533
Docket Number: 196 C.D. 1991
Parties: BUDD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (BRADLEY), Respondent.
Judges: Before PALLADINO and KELLEY, JJ., and BLATT, Senior Judge.
Reporter: Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Reports
Volume: 144
Pages: 533–545

Head Matter:
601 A.2d 1322
BUDD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (BRADLEY), Respondent.
Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.
Submitted on Briefs July 12, 1991.
Decided Jan. 7, 1992.
Petition for Allowance of Appeal Denied May 26, 1992.
Frederick J. Gentile, for petitioner.
Brian R. Steiner, for respondent.
Before PALLADINO and KELLEY, JJ., and BLATT, Senior Judge.

Opinion:
BLATT, Senior Judge.
Budd Company (employer) appeals a decision of the Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board (Board) affirming a referee's decision to modify a supplemental agreement between the employer and Vincent Bradley (claimant), entered into pursuant to Section 407 of The Pennsylvania Workmen's Compensation Act (Act) . We affirm.
On June 8, 1987, the claimant suffered a work-related injury to his head. A notice of compensation payable was executed on June 23, 1987. The claimant returned to work on July 6, 1987. A final receipt was executed on July 9, 1987.
Approximately six weeks later, the claimant and the employer entered into a supplemental agreement (agreement). By its terms, the employer agreed to pay the claimant compensation of $361.00 a week for six weeks for the facial scar resulting from the claimant's injury. The claimant signed the agreement, drafted by the employer, without benefit of legal counsel. It was neither witnessed nor dated. Pursuant to the agreement, the employer delivered a check for $2,166.00 to the claimant in October 1987. The claimant did not cash the check.
On June 20, 1988, the claimant filed a petition for review of the agreement with the Board. The claimant asserted that six weeks of compensation for this injury was unconscionable. The referee entered an order modifying the agreement and awarding the claimant eighty weeks of compensation. The employer appealed to the Board which affirmed the referee's decision.
On appeal to this Court, the employer argues that the referee had no authority to modify the agreement. The claimant also petitions for counsel fees pursuant to Pa. R.A.P. 2744. The petition is consolidated with the employer's appeal on the merits.
I. THE REFEREE'S AUTHORITY TO MODIFY
Section 413(a) of the Act authorizes a referee, at any time, to modify a supplemental agreement "if it be proved that . [the] agreement was in any material respect incorrect." 77 P.S. § 771.
The employer argues that an insufficient award does not fall within the statutory standard for modification. In support of its argument, the employer cites Baluta v. Glen Alden Coal Co., 109 Pa.Superior Ct. 66, 165 A. 764 (1933). In Baluta, the superior court addressed a petition for modification of a supplemental agreement on the basis of insufficient compensation for a disfigurement. The agreement was reviewed and approved by the Board. Payments, pursuant to the approved agreement, had ceased six months prior to filing the petition for modification.
The superior court expressed reluctance at setting aside an agreement which was referred to and approved by the Board. The court noted that the parties were protected by the provision of the Act which required such review and approval. The court's decision to deny the petition ultimately turned on the fact that the supplemental agreement was not a then existing agreement appropriate for modification.
Unlike Baluta, the agreement which set forth the compensation in this case was not approved by the Board nor was compensation paid out pursuant to the agreement.
Further, Baluta was governed by statutory language which required proof that the supplemental agreement "was procured by the fraud, coercion, or other improper conduct of a party, or was founded upon a mistake of law or of fact____" Act of June 2,1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S. § 731. Based on this standard and the petitioner's argument, the superior court concluded that there was no mistake of fact, as contemplated under Section 771, where "another referee or board would fix a different period as the measure of liability than that fixed by the agreement of the parties fairly entered into. . . ." Baluta, 109 Pa.Superior Ct. at 68, 165 A. at 764.
Significantly, this case is governed by a different standard. The statutory language which controlled Baluta was changed by Section 1 of the Act of June 4, 1937, P.L. 1552, which substituted the standard "in any material respect incorrect" for the above quoted language. As a result, a referee may modify or set aside an agreement, "even absent a finding of mistake of law or fact, fraud or overreaching." Furmanek v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Bd., 64 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 367, 370, 439 A.2d 1359, 1361 (1982).
Though pure mistakes of fact and law clearly remain within the standard, see e.g., Reed v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Bd., 499 Pa. 177, 452 A.2d 997 (1982), their absence does not otherwise render a referee powerless to modify an agreement. Hill v. Booth & Flinn Co., 146 Pa.Superior Ct. 575, 23 A.2d 85 (1941). The standard also reaches agreements based on claimant's misunderstandings of their rights under the Act, Ambrosia Coal & Constr. Co. v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Bd., 42 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 512, 400 A.2d 1377 (1979) and agreements which fail to reflect the extent of a claimant's disability. Litton Indus. v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Bd. (Christner), 78 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 79, 466 A.2d 1114 (1983).
In this case, the referee identified three bases for modification of the agreement: (1) the inadequacy of the compensation, (2) the lack of a date on the agreement itself and (3) the lack of a witness attesting the claimant's signature. In affirming the referee, the Board concluded that "[t]he discrepancy here . between six weeks and eighty weeks is sufficiently great as to arise to the level of making the Supplemental Agreement materially incorrect." Bd. Op., Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 45a.
None of the elemental facts — the claimant's appearance, the seriousness of the disfigurement nor its permanence — is at issue. The dispute rests solely on the adequacy of the compensation set forth in the agreement.
Section 306(c) of the Act establishes the maximum compensation for disfigurement of the head. It contains no standards or guidelines to assist the referee in fixing the appropriate number of weeks to be awarded in a disfigurement case. Once the referee determines, as a matter of fact, that a claimant's scarring rises to the level of a compensable disfigurement, the Act clearly vests him with the authority to find the factual elements necessary to support an award and the discretion to set the compensation up to a maximum of two hundred and seventy-five weeks.
The basic concern in setting aside awards based on an agreement is to assure that the compensation is fair. Where the compensation set forth in an agreement is gross ly disproportionate to the degree of disfigurement and the compensation rights relinquished, it materially overlooks the loss resulting from the injury.
Here, the referee, based on his personal observation and description of the disfigurement, found that the employee suffered a greater disfigurement than that comprehended within the terms of the agreement. Because the agreement provided a mere six weeks of compensation in contrast with the referee's finding of eighty weeks, he concluded that the agreement was incorrect in a material respect within the meaning of Section 413(a) of the Act. Our review of the order of modification convinces this Court that the claimant met his burden of proof, that the referee acted within his powers, and that the Board's order was without any error of law.
II. COUNSEL FEES
The claimant petitioned for counsel fees pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 2744. Rule 2744 provides that an appellate court may award counsel fees if "it determines that an appeal is frivolous or taken solely for delay or that the conduct of the participant against whom costs are to be imposed is dilatory, obdurate or vexatious." Id. The petition before this court fails to satisfy any of these elements.
A frivolous appeal is one in which no justiciable question is presented and which is readily recognizable as devoid of merit and with little prospect of success. Polinsky v. Dep't of Transp., 131 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 83, 569 A.2d 425 (1990). This petition presents the question of the insufficiency of compensation as the basis for finding that a supplemental agreement is in a material respect incorrect. This is a matter of first impression before this court and suitable for judicial determination.
Further, there is no evidence that the employer's appeal was taken solely for delay or that its conduct in pursuing the appeal was dilatory, obdurate or vexatious.
Accordingly, both the employer's appeal and the claimant's petition for counsel fees are denied.
ORDER
AND NOW, this 7th day of January, 1992, the order of the Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board in the above-captioned matter is affirmed and the claimant's petition for counsel fees is denied.
. Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S. § 731.
. The check was in the possession of the claimant's counsel in the hearings before the referee. When the employer's counsel refused to accept the return of the uncashed check, the referee suggested that the claimant mail it to the employer.
. This language was adopted by Section 6 of the Act of June 25, 1919, P.L. 642.
. The language of the 1937 statute was deleted by Section 1 of the Act of June 21, 1939, P.L. 520, which readopted the 1919 language. The current standard, adopted in Section 3 of the Act of February 8, 1972, P.L. 25, readopted the 1937 language.
. In Hill, the Pennsylvania Superior Court noted that findings that a supplemental agreement was based upon mistakes of law and fact are superfluous under the statutory language "in any material respect incorrect."
. The Board also noted that the bases for the referee's decision, though framed as conclusions of law, were findings of fact. Bd.Op., R.R. at 44a. We agree and emphasize that our scope of review on appeal is limited to determining whether there is competent and substantial evidence to support these findings and whether the law has been properly applied. Magayna v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Bd. (Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.), 115 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 268, 539 A.2d 952 (1988).
. 77 P.S. § 513.
. The measurement of the extent of the disfigurement in terms of weekly compensation is a finding of fact, Baluta, 109 Pa.Superior Ct. at 68-69, 165 A. at 764, based upon the referee's subjective evaluation, following his personal observation of the appearance of the disfigurement. Am. Chain & Cable Co. v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Bd. (Weaver), 70 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 579, 454 A.2d 211 (1982). The referee, therefore, must make findings, supported by substantial competent evidence, to support both the award itself and the amount of the award. Id.
. The other bases for the referee's decision are not dispositive. Neither the absence of a date on the agreement nor an attesting witness to the agreement satisfy Section 413(a).