Court Opinion

ID: 9704946
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:52:53.552252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:06.843812
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
I would not apply our waiver rule in proceedings before the workmen’s compensation referee in the same fashion as *533in our trial courts. The purpose for the waiver rule is to promote judicial economy by affording appellate tribunals the benefit of a fully developed record including the considered reasoning of the lower tribunal. Because, in my view, the administrative scheme provided by the Workmen’s Compensation Act does not strictly limit the board to appellate functions in the judicial sense, I see no need for extending the applicability of the waiver rule to matters before the workmen’s compensation referee.
It is true, as the majority notes, that the workmen’s compensation appeal board is defined in the Workmen’s Compensation Act as “a departmental administrative board ... exercising its powers and performing its duties as an appellate board,” 77 P.S. § 701 (Supp.1986). Nevertheless, the Workmen’s Compensation Act, which establishes the administrative scheme within which the board functions, has fixed the board’s quasijuristic functions as both appellate and fact-determining. See, e.g. 77 P.S. § 831 (Supp. 1986) which provides for investigation and fact-finding by, inter alia, the board. The board functions somewhat like an appellate court, but, because the board can consider new evidence, proceedings before the board are not, strictly speaking, appellate proceedings. Thus, I would not extend applicability of our waiver rule from the judicial setting to the administrative setting in workmen’s compensation cases. Rather, I would hold that matters raised within the aegis of the workmen’s compensation administrative scheme are not waived simply because they were not first raised to the referee, and that matters may be considered on appeal so long as they were raised within the administrative process below.
Consistent with this approach, I would further hold that the doctrine of res judicata does not bar claimant’s petition for relief. The second petition, which was ordered by the board, was filed in proceedings which were merely an extension of the original proceeding to recover benefits and not in a separate, second proceeding. Until the board made *534its final adjudication, the doctrine of res judicata could have no application.
NIX, C.J., joins this concurring opinion.
HUTCHINSON, J., joins this concurring opinion and files a concurring opinion in which McDERMOTT, J., joins.