Court Opinion

ID: 9367353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-31 16:10:02.344161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:59.447478
License: Public Domain

IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Jackikay Randall,                           :
                    Petitioner              :
                                            :
             v.                             :
                                            :
City of Philadelphia (Workers’              :
Compensation Appeal Board),                 :   No. 415 C.D. 2022
                   Respondent               :   Submitted: December 9, 2022

BEFORE:      HONORABLE RENÉE COHN JUBELIRER, President Judge
             HONORABLE CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge
             HONORABLE STACY WALLACE, Judge

OPINION NOT REPORTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION
BY JUDGE FIZZANO CANNON                         FILED: January 31, 2023

             Jackikay Randall (Claimant) petitions for review of an order of the
Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Board) dated March 30, 2022. Claimant
challenges the portion of the Board’s order that affirmed the order of a workers’
compensation judge (WCJ) granting Claimant’s reinstatement petition and
reinstating her benefits to total disability status as of October 15, 2019, the date of
the reinstatement petition. Claimant asserts that the Board should have reinstated
her total disability benefits retroactively to February 22, 2016, the date of the original
modification of her status from total to partial disability. Claimant maintains that
she has a vested property right to benefits under the Pennsylvania Constitution,
Article I, Sections 1, 2, and 11.1 As we have consistently done in numerous similar
cases, we affirm the Board’s order.

                                             I. Background
                  The facts of this matter are not in dispute. Claimant sustained a work-
related injury in September 2003 while employed as a police officer for the City of

        1
            Article I, Section 1 provides:
                  § 1. Inherent rights of mankind.
                  All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain
                  inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying
                  and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and
                  protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own
                  happiness.
Pa. Const. art. I, § 1.
        Article I, Section 2 provides:
                  § 2. Political powers.
                  All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are
                  founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety and
                  happiness. For the advancement of these ends they have at all times
                  an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their
                  government in such manner as they may think proper.
Pa. Const. art. I, § 2.
        Article I, Section 11 provides:
                  § 11. Courts to be open; suits against the Commonwealth.
                  All courts shall be open; and every man for an injury done him in
                  his lands, goods, person or reputation shall have remedy by due
                  course of law, and right and justice administered without sale, denial
                  or delay. Suits may be brought against the Commonwealth in such
                  manner, in such courts and in such cases as the Legislature may by
                  law direct.
Pa. Const. art. I, § 11.

                                                     2
Philadelphia (Employer). Bd. Dec. at 1. On February 22, 2016, she underwent an
impairment rating evaluation (IRE) at Employer’s behest in accordance with former
Section 306(a.2) of the Workers’ Compensation Act (Act),2 former 77 P.S. § 511.2.3
The IRE resulted in an impairment rating of less than 50%.                       Bd. Dec. at 1.
Accordingly, Employer filed a modification petition, which was granted by
agreement of the parties, modifying Claimant’s disability status from total disability
to partial disability as of the IRE date. Id. Neither party appealed. Id.
                 In 2017, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the IRE provision
of former Section 306(a.2) violated the Pennsylvania Constitution by impermissibly
delegating legislative authority to a private entity. Protz v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal
Bd. (Derry Area Sch. Dist.), 161 A.3d 827 (Pa. 2017).                      Concluding that the
delegation provision was not severable, the Court struck the entirety of Section
306(a.2) from the Act. Id.
                 In October 2019, Employer filed a termination petition averring that
Claimant fully recovered from her work injury as of September 19, 2019. Bd. Dec.
at 1.       Claimant denied the averments of the termination petition and filed a
reinstatement petition in October 2019 seeking reinstatement of her total disability
status as of February 22, 2016, the modification date based on the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court’s decision in Protz. Id. at 2. In December 2020, Claimant also filed
a review petition seeking to expand the description of her work injury. Id.
                 In June 2021, a WCJ denied the termination petition and granted the
review petition. Bd. Dec. at 2. Of relevance here, the WCJ also granted Claimant’s
reinstatement petition based on Protz and reinstated her total disability status as of

        2
            Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S. §§1-1041.4, 2501-2710.
        3
            Added by Section 4 of the Act of June 24, 1996, P.L. 350, formerly 77 P.S. § 511.2.

                                                  3
October 15, 2019, the date she filed the reinstatement petition. Id. Both Claimant
and Employer appealed to the Board, which affirmed the WCJ’s decision in all
respects. Id. at 15.
              Claimant then filed a petition for review in this Court, challenging only
the effective date of the reinstatement of her total disability status.

                                           II. Issue
              Before this Court,4 Claimant argues that she had a vested right to
workers’ compensation total disability benefits.              She posits that because our
Supreme Court invalidated Section 306(a.2) and struck it from the Act, that
provision was void ab initio. As a result, Claimant maintains that Protz requires
reinstatement of her total disability status as of the February 2016 modification date,
not the October 2019 reinstatement petition date.

                                       III. Discussion
              The IRE provision contained in former Section 306(a.2) of the Act, 77
P.S. § 511.2, required physicians to conduct IREs according to “the most recent
edition” of the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of
Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides). In Protz, our Supreme Court held that
former Section 306(a.2) unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority to a
private party, in that the legislature did not retain authority or input concerning the
standards that might be contained in any future edition of the AMA Guides. 161

       4
         This Court’s review of a workers’ compensation decision is limited to determining
whether necessary findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence, whether an error of law
was committed, or whether constitutional rights were violated. Pocono Mt. Sch. Dist. v.
Kojeszewski (Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd.), 280 A.3d 12, 16 n.4 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2022).

                                               4
A.3d at 837-38. Concluding that the “most recent edition” language could not be
severed from the rest of Section 306(a.2), our Supreme Court held that the entirety
of Section 306(a.2) was unconstitutional and struck it from the Act.5 Id. at 840-41.
               Before this Court, Claimant asserts that the invalidation of former
Section 306(a.2) in Protz entitled her to reinstatement of her total disability status as
of the February 2016 modification date rather than the October 2019 reinstatement
petition date. We disagree.
               In Whitfield v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Tenet Health
System Hahnemann LLC), 188 A.3d 599 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2018) (en banc), this Court
held that where a claimant receiving partial disability benefits has filed a
reinstatement petition based on Protz, the reinstatement of total disability status shall
be effective as of the date of the reinstatement petition, not the modification date. In
post-Whitfield cases, we have repeatedly rejected the very argument Claimant asserts
here, i.e., that a claimant seeking reinstatement of total disability benefits pursuant
to Protz is entitled to retroactive reinstatement back to the original modification/IRE
date on the basis that former Section 306(a.2) was void ab initio. See, e.g., DiPaolo
v. UPMC Magee Women’s Hosp. (Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd.), 278 A.3d 430, 438
(Pa. Cmwlth. 2022) (rejecting the claimant’s assertions when our Supreme Court
struck former Section 306(a.2) in Protz, that provision was void ab initio and
claimant who underwent an IRE prior to Protz was automatically restored to pre-
IRE status; stating that “our courts have never held that to be the case, and several

       5
          In response to Protz, the legislature enacted the Act of October 24, 2018, P.L. 714, No.
111 (Act 111). Act 111 repealed section 306(a.2) and replaced it with section 306(a.3) of the Act,
77 P.S. § 511.3. Under Section 306(a.3), an IRE must be conducted in accordance with the Sixth
Edition of the AMA Guides, published in 2007, and a claimant’s whole body impairment must be
less than 35% in order for the claimant to be moved from total to partial disability status. 77 P.S.
§ 511.3.

                                                 5
decisions have placed temporal limits on the application of Protz . . . ”); Pullin v.
Sch. Dist. of Phila. (Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd.) (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 727 C.D. 2021,
filed Feb. 25, 2022),6 slip op. at 4-5 n.5, appeal denied, 280 A.3d 866 (Pa. 2022)
(declining to accord “full retroactivity” to Protz by holding that the IRE process
under former Section 306(a.2) was void ab initio) (citing, inter alia, Weidenhammer
v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (Albright Coll.), 232 A.3d 986, 989-95 (Pa. Cmwlth.),
appeal denied, 242 A.3d 912 (Pa. 2020)); White v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (City
of Phila.), 237 A.3d 1225, 1231 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2020) (en banc) (reaffirming Whitfield
and holding that reinstatement of total disability benefits was effective only “as of
the date of [the] reinstatement petition, not the effective date of the change in [the
claimant’s] disability status from total to partial”). We likewise reject Claimant’s
argument here.
              We also reject Claimant’s vested right argument. In Dana Holding
Corp. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Smuck), 232 A.3d 629 (Pa. 2020),
our Supreme Court applied Protz to grant a modification from partial to total
disability as of the previous IRE date, but only because the claimant was already
litigating a constitutional challenge to former Section 306(a.2) at the time Protz was
decided. Our Supreme Court in Dana Holding agreed with this Court’s conclusion
“that a disability modification is not vested when it remains subject to a preserved
challenge pursued by a presently aggrieved claimant.” Id. at 649. Accordingly, the
Court concluded “the general rule in Pennsylvania will be that . . . a holding of this
Court that a statute is unconstitutional will generally be applied [retroactively only
as] to cases pending on direct appeal in which the constitutional challenge has been

       6
         Pursuant to Section 414(a) of our Internal Operating Procedures, unreported opinions of
this Court issued after January 15, 2008 may be cited as persuasive. 210 Pa. Code § 69.414(a).

                                               6
raised and preserved.” Id. at 693; see also White, 237 A.3d at 1231 (distinguishing
Dana Holding from Whitfield). Here, Claimant had no such constitutional challenge
pending when Protz was decided. Thus, the February 2016 modification was not
“subject to a preserved challenge pursued by a presently aggrieved claimant” on the
date of the Protz decision. Dana Holding, 232 A.3d at 649. Accordingly, Claimant
was not entitled to benefit from a retroactive application of Protz beyond the date of
her reinstatement petition.
             In addition, as Employer aptly observes, Claimant’s arguments here
were also asserted before this Court by the same counsel and were rejected in Yeager
v. City of Philadelphia (Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board) (Pa. Cmwlth., No.
709 C.D. 2021, filed Aug. 4, 2022).         This Court summarized its analysis and
conclusion regarding those arguments as follows:
             Claimant’s benefits were modified by stipulation by a
             WCJ’s decision . . . , based on the IRE . . . . Neither party
             appealed the modification. Claimant filed for
             reinstatement . . . after Protz [] was decided. Therefore,
             we are bound to follow Whitfield and its progeny, and we
             hold that Claimant’s reinstatement was properly granted
             as of the date that Claimant filed for reinstatement . . . .
             Further, because Claimant’s IRE was not in active
             litigation when Protz [] was decided, Dana Holding does
             not apply to alter the effective date of Claimant’s
             reinstatement.

Id., slip op. at 9. That analysis applies equally here.
             On August 29, 2022, the claimant in Yeager filed a petition for
allowance of appeal in our Supreme Court, but the Court has not yet ruled on whether
to grant allocatur in that case. Unless and until our Supreme Court reverses our
decision in Yeager, we find our reasoning in that case persuasive, and we follow it
here. See Pa. State Troopers Ass’n v. Commonwealth, 603 A.2d 253, 256 (Pa.

                                           7
Cmwlth. 1992) (adhering to the reasoning of a prior similar decision despite a
pending appeal of the prior decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court).

                                 IV. Conclusion
            Based on the foregoing discussion, we affirm the Board’s order.

                                     __________________________________
                                     CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge

                                        8
         IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Jackikay Randall,                     :
                    Petitioner        :
                                      :
            v.                        :
                                      :
City of Philadelphia (Workers’        :
Compensation Appeal Board),           :   No. 415 C.D. 2022
                   Respondent         :

                                 ORDER

            AND NOW, this 31st day of January, 2023, the order of the Workers’
Compensation Appeal Board, dated March 30, 2022, is AFFIRMED.

                                    __________________________________
                                    CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge