Court Opinion

ID: 9645374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:23:02.27756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:28.079546
License: Public Domain

DOYLE, President Judge,
Concurring.
While I agree with the Majority that the Board properly affirmed the decision to deny Brubacher’s petition for a subrogation hen, I write separately because I do not agree with the Majority’s analysis and rebanee on Dale Manufacturing Co. v. Bressi, 491 Pa. 493, 421 A.2d 653 (1980) and Maitland Brothers Co., Inc. v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Moser), 92 Pa.Cmwlth. 421, 499 A.2d 713 (1985), to reach that conclusion.
On the other hand, I also do not agree with the analysis, or conclusion, of the dissent which seems to suggest that an employer has a subrogable interest against a third party tortfeasor by applying a “but for” causal connection standard between the work-injury and the subsequent event leading to the third party recovery. As Judge Leadbetter correctly observes, however, in her dissenting opinion, “courts have repeatedly recognized that subsequent events which do not flow naturally from the initial work-related injury may themselves, under certain circumstances, be compensable to the extent that they increase the level or duration of the disability.” (Dissent, op. at 1280.)
The proper causation analysis is best illustrated, I believe, in Powell v. Sacred Heart Hospital, 99 Pa.Cmwlth. 575, 514 A.2d 241 (1986), a case involving a recovery for a death caused by malpractice that occurred during surgery related to decedent’s work-related back injury, where Judge Barbieri distinguished Dale and wrote:
Our decision in Dale was affirmed by the Supreme Court ... but on the ground that there was insufficient evidence on which to make a determination as to whether the failure of a surgeon to remove a cottonoid pad from the wound and the subsequent surgery required for the removal of the pad ‘either aggravated the original injury or caused a new and independent one.’_ Here, however, there is no question that the surgical procedure, to alleviate a condition *1280caused in the course of employment and for which compensation liability had been accepted by the insurer, was not a separate event dissociated from the original injury. In fact, the circumstances here involve a surgical death from one of the regular hazards of surgery, anesthesia, quite unlike the failure to remove a cottonoid pad from the wound in Dale. Here, and as contended in the third party action, the decedent suffered a respiratory arrest leading to a cardiac arrest whereupon the surgery was aborted but decedent died when taken to the intensive care unit. Indeed, we find a striking similarity of this case to Hornetz [v. Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co., 277 Pa. 40, 120 A. 662 (1923)] where a mineworker who sustained a compound fracture of his right index finger at work for which he was operated upon with the use of anesthesia which caused dilation of his heart and death. The Supreme Court sustained an award of compensation benefits for the death upon the following statement:
The violence caused the injury, the injury caused the operation, the operation caused the anesthetization, the anesthetization caused dilation of the heart and dilation of the heart caused death. Hence there was a causal connection between the [original] violence and [the subsequent] death.
Powell, at 244-245. Based on the above reasoning, the Powell Court concluded that the insurer was entitled to subrogation out of the amount received in the malpractice action
In my view, the analysis applied in Powell and Hometz to determine the causal connection between the original work injury and the subsequent event for which a third party is hable is analogous to the traditional tort standard of causation referred to as proximate or legal cause: an actor’s conduct is the legal cause of a harm where the conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about the harm. See Hicks v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 665 A.2d 529 (Pa.Cmwlth.1995), petition for allowance of appeal denied, 544 Pa. 638, 675 A.2d 1253 (1996).
Applying traditional tort causation principles to the facts in the case sub judice, it is clear that the subsequent event here— unlawful discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101-12213—was not causally connected to the injury that Claimant sustained while working for Brubacher. The civil rights claim against Diesel Services was an absolute distinct cause of action secured by a federal statute, a statute rooted in social policy, and the action was based on the intentional wrongful conduct of Diesel. Therefore, the Majority correctly concluded that the Board did not err in denying Brubacher’s petition for a sub-rogation lien.