Court Opinion

ID: 9733122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:54:01.992919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:38.578076
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Judge Palladino:
While I concur in the result reached by the majority, I respectfully dissent to the analysis regarding credibility determinations in the majority opinion. The majority categorically states that it will not infer a credibility determination merely from the decision of the fact-finder against the party with the burden of proof. This approach is repeatedly used in the majority’s presentation, at one point stating: “We decline to infer credibility-”
The majority has not only exceeded the bounds necessary for disposition of this matter, but has reached an errant conclusion in its scope of review analysis that will only result in unduly burdening administrative agencies.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly has structured administrative agencies to develop expertise in a given body of law and apply that expertise. This court has long adhered to the principle that determinations of credibility are solely within the province of the fact-finding body. The fact-finder has made implicit credibility determinations in every decision or award. This is the nature of fact-finding, and the legislature has bestowed that function solely on the agency. The majority reaches the somewhat esoteric conclusion, however, that this court will ignore these implied credibility determinations in cases where the testimony of the party with the burden of proof is the only evidence in the record, and the referee nevertheless finds against that party. The true nature of the administrative body’s role as a fact-*100finder, where there is a decision against the testifying claimant, is that implicit in such decision is a negative credibility determination, and this court should not disturb such a finding on appeal.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s pronouncement in Peak v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 509 Pa. 267, 273, 501 A.2d 1383, 1387 (1985) applies equally in this context:
We are not inclined to require a busy agency, whose swift disposition of the many cases before it is vital to the subsistence of our fellow citizens who suffer lack of work, to engage in acts of supererogation.
Because a remand in the situation described by the majority would result in agency supererogation, I concur in the result only.