Court Opinion

ID: 9693276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:34:15.410553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:43.980432
License: Public Domain

DOYLE, Judge,
concurring.
I join with the majority in holding that Officer Lopatic’s benefits under the Heart and Lung Act1 (HLA) should not be terminated without a full due process pretermination hearing that would include notice, the opportunity to be heard and the right “to cross-examine witnesses, to introduce evidence on his own behalf, and to make argument,”. Callahan v. Pennsylvania State Police, 494 Pa. 461, 465, 431 A.2d 946, 948 (1981). I will write separately only to indicate that such a hearing could have been afforded Officer Lopatic by the Township’s civil service commission under Sections 644 and 645 of the First Class Township Code,2 had the Township, although finding that he was unable to perform his duties, not terminated his HLA benefits until after such a due process fair hearing was held. In other words, the Township’s error was in “automatically” terminating Officer Lopatic’s HLA benefits, not in chosing the procedural route to find the officer physically unable to continue as a police officer. Had Officer Lopatic not appealed the formal adjudication of December 15, 1988 to the Commission, then, and only then, would a separate hearing under the Local Agency Law, 2 Pa.C.S. §§ 551-555, 751-754, have been required.

. Section 1 of the Act of June 28, 1935, P.L. 477, as amended, 53 P.S. § 637.

. Act of June 24, 1931, P.L. 1206, as amended, 53 P.S. §§ 55644, 55645. Both sections were added by Section 20 of the Act of May 27, 1949, P.L. 1955.