Court Opinion

ID: 9746505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:19:24.472725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:14.059819
License: Public Domain

CASTILLE, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the decision of the majority. However, I write separately to further explain my understanding on the use of hearsay testimony in workers’ compensation proceedings.
In Joyce v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Ogden/Allied Maintenance), 545 Pa. 185, 680 A.2d 855 (1996), the majority of this Court held that a claimant’s workers’ compensation benefits should not have been modified because the modification was based upon improper hearsay testimony of the employer’s job placement specialist. In Joyce, the employer’s job placement specialist testified that a prospective employer told her that claimant did not apply for a position to which the claimant was referred. Claimant made a timely objection to this testimony. Because claimant made a timely objection, the majority in Joyce held that this hearsay testimony was inadmissible. Thus, the majority reversed the Com*577monwealth Court’s affirmance of the modification of claimant’s benefits since the employer had failed to present any other substantial evidence to meet its burden of proving job availability under Kachinski v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Vepco Construction Co.), 516 Pa. 240, 532 A.2d 374 (1987).
In my concurring and dissenting opinion in Joyce, I concurred with the majority to the extent that it announced a rule of law that hearsay testimony alone, to which a proper objection is made, cannot support a referee’s finding in a workers’ compensation case. I also agreed with the majority that the job placement specialist’s testimony as to whether claimant applied for a certain position was hearsay testimony. However, I dissented from the majority’s holding because I believed that such testimony did not go towards proving the issue of job availability. Instead, I believed that such testimony went to the issue of whether claimant pursued a referred position in good faith. Because the job placement specialist’s testimony was hearsay to which a timely objection was made, I stated that such testimony standing alone could not be used by the referee to support a finding that claimant acted in bad faith. However, since there was other non-hearsay evidence to support a finding of bad faith (such as claimant failing to follow instructions in applying for a position and claimant’s admission that he needed to do more in seeking future employment), I dissented from the majority’s reversal of the modification of claimant’s benefits.
In the case sub judice, it is clear the vocational counselor’s testimony that appellee, Louis A. Perfile, did not apply for a position with Tri-State Equipment constituted hearsay testimony to which appellee made a timely objection. Thus, pursuant to Joyce, this evidence could not be used by the referee to support a finding that appellee acted in bad faith in seeking the TriState Equipment position. Unlike Joyce, however, the record does not contain any non-hearsay evidence to independently support a finding of bad faith. Accordingly, I join in majority’s affirmance of the Commonwealth Court’s reversal of the modification of appellee’s benefits.