Court Opinion

ID: 9634673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:20:07.440997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:08.067468
License: Public Domain

PELLEGRINI, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result only. This appeal is one of four interrelated appeals decided together clarifying the procedure to be used to adjudicate benefits under the Heart and Lung Act.1 I do not disagree with the resolution of the core issue that entitlement to heart and lung benefits are determined in accordance with the procedures set forth in the Local Agency Law.2 Where I part company is with certain inferences or conclusions contained in those opinions with which I disagree either because they need not be made or are erroneous. Those inferences and conclusions are:
• unnecessarily purports to “sanction” certain administrative agencies to have jurisdiction to hear Heart and Lung Act cases when jurisdiction is conferred by the *398Local Agency Law by the agency that initially made the decision. (Wisniewski and Sidlow.)3
• determinations made in Heart and Lung Act proceedings before a “local agency” are determinative of the same issues in a Workmen’s Compensation Act proceeding and vice-versa. (Kohut).
• infers that the right to benefits conferred on the individual worker may be affected by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. (Sidlow).
I.
What is commonly called the Heart and Lung Act, Act of June 28, 1935, P.L. 477, as amended, 53 P.S. §§ 637-638, imposes the duty on governmental agencies employing certain public safety employees to provide them -with full compensation while they are temporarily disabled due to work-related injuries. Organ v. Pennsylvania State Police, 112 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 352, 535 A.2d 713 (1988). The Heart and Lung Act is not intended to displace the Workmen’s Compensation Act or the Occupational Disease Act, and covers only those disabilities where the injured employee is expected to recover and return to his or her position in the foreseeable future. Cunningham v. Pennsylvania State Police, 510 Pa. 74, 507 A.2d 40 (1986). Just like many other mandated benefits, the Heart and Lung Act only requires that benefits be paid, and does not establish a system as to how the Act should be administered.
Because the Heart and Lung Act mandates that benefits be paid to covered employees, a corresponding right is conferred in those employees to receive those benefits. The method by which a local government may grant or deny any right, when not specified or established by legislation, is set forth in the Local Agency Law.4 2 Pa.C.S. § 101 defines “adjudication” as:
*399Any final order, decree, decision, determination or ruling by an agency affecting personal or property rights, privileges, immunities, duties, liabilities or obligations of any or all of the parties to the proceeding in which the adjudication is made. The term does not include any order based upon a proceeding before a court or which involves the seizure or forfeiture of property, paroles, pardons or releases from mental institutions.
Because the denial of heart and lung benefits is a determination involving a right or privilege, it is an adjudication within the Local Agency Law. 2 Pa.C.S. §§ 551-554 provides that the local agency that made the determination is to conduct a hearing on the adjudication before the adjudication is considered valid. See Callahan v. Pennsylvania State Police, 494 Pa. 461, 431 A.2d 946 (1981). 2 Pa.C.S. § 558 provides that:
No adjudication of a local agency shall be valid as to any party unless he shall have been afforded reasonable notice of a hearing and an opportunity to be heard. All testimony may be stenographieally recorded and a full and complete record may be kept of the proceedings.
2 Pa.C.S. §§ 751-754 provides for judicial review of local agency determinations. 2 Pa.C.S. § 752 provides:
Any person aggrieved by an adjudication of a local agency who has a direct interest in such an adjudication shall have the right to appeal therefrom to the court vested with jurisdiction of such appeals ...
2 Pa.C.S. § 751 provides for judicial review, even if the statute conferring the right expressly states that there should be no review or that the order of the local agency should be final and conclusive. See Maritime Management, Inc. v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, 531 Pa. 95, 611 A.2d 202 (1992).
By enacting the Local Agency Law, the General Assembly provided for a “default” method of providing due process when the system and the forum were not set out in specific legislation. That method provides that the local agency responsible *400for making the determination to grant or deny benefits is the forum that is responsible for conducting a due process hearing. As to heart and lung benefits, if the Borough Council is the local government agency that determines whether to grant or deny benefits, then the Local Agency Law fixes that body as the agency that is to hear the appeal. Only that agency and no other is sanctioned to be the forum.
II.
In Kohut, a local agency determined that a covered employee’s condition was no longer temporary and, accordingly, the employee was no longer entitled to heart and lung benefits. No appeal was taken from that determination. Because the employee was unable to return to work because his condition was unresolved, the Township discharged him. Subsequently, the Township sought to terminate claimant’s workmen’s compensation benefits because it alleged that the claimant had fully recovered from his work-related injury.
Kohut holds that the determination made in a heart and lung proceeding that a covered employee was no longer temporarily incapacitated collaterally estops the Township from arguing forever that claimant has fully recovered in a workmen’s compensation proceeding. By doing so, Kohut introduces the concept that issue preclusion should act to bar relitigation of issues decided in a Heart and Lung Act proceeding to a Workmen’s Compensation Act proceeding and vice-versa. As a result, work relatedness, causation and other determinations common to heart and lung and workmen’s compensation proceedings will not be made by the tribunal entrusted with making the determination, but by the tribunal that issues its determination first. This holding is in error for several reasons.
Because the Heart and Lung Act and the Workmen’s Compensation Act both serve to provide benefits to injured employees, there is a natural tendency to treat them the same. But they are two different acts with two different policies, and issue preclusion in determinations made in one forum to the other should be prohibited. As stated previously, the Heart *401and Lung Act is not intended to displace the Workmen’s Compensation Act or the Occupational Disease Act, Act of June 2, 1939, P.L. 566, as amended, 77 P.S. §§ 1201-1603, which covers prolonged or permanent disabilities, but is intended to cover only those disabilities where the injured employee is expected to recover and return to his or her position in the foreseeable future. Cunningham. Because the purpose of these Acts is to promote decidedly different public policies of the Commonwealth, it is inappropriate to apply issue preclusion to those issues decided by a tribunal determining whether either heart and lung benefits or workmen’s compensation benefits should be awarded to the other. Odgers v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 514 Pa. 378, 525 A.2d 359 (1987).
Kohut also holds that when there is a finding that an injury is no longer temporary, that finding is the same as finding that the injury is permanent and unresolvable. However, to terminate heart and lung benefits, it only has to be determined that the disability is “of indeterminate duration and recovery is not projected in the foreseeable future, it cannot be deemed to be ‘temporary’ within the meaning of the [Heart and Lung] Act.” Cunningham, 510 Pa. at 81, 507 A.2d at 44. Even if collateral estoppel was available, it does not apply in this situation because the issue of what is temporary is different than saying that the condition is permanently unresolvable.
Not only are the purposes of the Workmen’s Compensation Act different from those of the Heart and Lung Act, and the specific issue as to whether the injury is temporary different, thereby foreclosing the application of collateral estoppel, the Heart and Lung Act envisions that the governmental employer will administer the Act for covered employees while the Workmen’s Compensation and Occupational Disease Acts mandate a uniform state administered system of benefits through which the right to benefits is determined. That state administered system also guarantees that those rights will solely be determined by referees and the Workmen’s Compen*402sation Appeal Board unaffected by determinations made by local agencies.
For the foregoing reasons, findings made in a Heart and Lung Act case should not act to collaterally estop different findings made in a workmen’s compensation proceeding or vice versa.5
III.
I agree with the majority in Sidlow that arbitration is inappropriate to determine heart and lung benefits under the terms of the contract between the municipality and the police union. But in dicta, the majority seems to infer that determination of heart and lung benefits may be determined by grievance-arbitration if the language of the collective bargaining agreement so provides. Whether heart and lung benefits can be grieved involves the issue of whether the right to those benefits are rights subject to collective bargaining which may be altered or are rights conferred on the individual which may not be abridged in any manner. See Barrentine v. Arkansas Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 101 S.Ct. 1437, 67 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981). This important issue was not briefed or argued and is not necessary for resolution of the case. It should not be addressed, even in dicta.
Accordingly, I concur in the result only.

. Those other cases are: Wisniewski v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (City of Pittsburgh), 153 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 403, 621 A.2d 1111 (1993); Kohut v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Township of Forward and Old Republic Insurance Company), 153 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 382, 621 A.2d 1101 (1993); Adams v. Lawrence Township Board of Supervisors, 153 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 418, 621 A.2d 1119 (1993).

. Local Agency Law, 2 Pa.C.S. §§ 551-555, 751-754.

. Wisniewski is incorporated by reference into Sidlow.

. The Administrative Agency Law, 2 Pa.C.S. §§ 501-508, 701-704, contains provisions similar to those set forth in the Local Agency Law.

. Not being a panel member in Kohut, I cannot dissent and only address this issue as it affects the overall procedure set forth in Wisniewski and Sidlow.