There are few instances where an employer can take self-help measures to suspend compensation benefits of an injured worker, without a judge's approval or some other competent authority directing the action. Incarceration following a conviction is one of them. Under Section 306(a.1) of the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act, an employer is not required to pay indemnity benefits “for any period during which the employee is incarcerated after a conviction.” While that phrase seems simple enough, the question often arises, what constitutes “incarceration after a conviction,” authorizing the automatic suspension.

Last month, the Commonwealth Court revisited the issue in the matter of Sadler v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Board (Philadelphia Coca-Cola), __ A.3d___(Pa. Commw., No. 218 C.D. 2019, filed May 22), which is worth reviewing in order to familiarize oneself with the issue. While the court also addressed a significant issue regarding the calculation of an average weekly wage, that portion of the case is beyond the scope of this article.

Sadler centered around a claimant who sustained an amputation of his right pinky finger and injured his back in July 2012. A converted notice of temporary compensation payable acknowledged the injury, which was later expanded by stipulation to include other injuries.

In January 2015, after having spent 525 days in jail awaiting trial due to his not being able to make bail, the claimant pleaded guilty in a criminal matter and was sentenced to time served and immediately released, receiving credit for the 525 days he had spent in jail. Since the original incarceration was, at the time, merely pending trial and not yet following a conviction, the employer was not able to avail itself of the self-help measure to which it might otherwise have been entitled. Four months after the claimant's release, the employer filed a petition to suspend the claimant's indemnity benefits, essentially asserting that the conviction turned the 525 days of pretrial incarceration into “incarceration following a conviction.” The employer maintained that the claimant would be unjustly enriched if a credit for the 525 days was not awarded.

The workers' compensation judge granted the employer's suspension petition, finding that the employer was entitled to reimbursement for benefits paid to the claimant during the 525 days that the claimant had been incarcerated. However, the WCJ awarded the employer's credit against the Supersedeas Fund as opposed to the injured worker's future compensation benefits.

The matter was appealed to the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board, which modified the decision to allow the employer to seek reimbursement for the credit from the claimant's future indemnity benefits, as opposed to the Supersedeas Fund. The board otherwise accepted the WCJ's findings regarding the alleged unjust enrichment.

On appeal to the Commonwealth Court, the claimant argued that the employer should never have been awarded a suspension and credit for the 525 days in pretrial incarceration since the plain language of the act only allows a suspension of benefits for “any period during which the claimant was incarcerated after a conviction.” Obviously, the incarceration took place before, not after the conviction, notwithstanding the retroactive application of the period of incarceration as “time served.” For its part, the employer argued that the claimant's time served, “converted to incarceration for conviction for his crime” after the guilty plea and that not awarding a credit would be contrary to “the spirit and intent” of the Workers' Compensation Act because it would operate as a windfall to the claimant since he would receive compensation for a nonwork-related loss of earnings.

In analyzing the matter, the court turned to the basic principles of statutory interpretation and the all-encompassing “humanitarian purposes of the act.” The court noted the long-standing principle that the best indication of the General Assembly's intent is the “plain language of the statute.” When the words of a statute are “clear and free from all ambiguity,” the letter of the law must be followed with no concern for “the spirit” of a particular statute. Moreover, the court recited the long-standing concept in workers' compensation law that any borderline interpretations should be resolved in favor of the claimant.

The plain language of Section 306 (a.1) of the act is, in a word, plain. The section states benefits are not required to be paid “for any period during which the employee is incarcerated after a conviction.” The Pennsylvania legislature could have easily included a provision that allows for time spent incarcerated before a conviction to be deemed as having taken place after the conviction if it had chosen to do so. In fact, the court turned to Rhode Island workers' compensation law where the general assembly there had done just that. In the analogous “forfeiture following conviction” section of its workers' compensation law, the Rhode Island legislature inserted the phrase that imprisonment requiring a suspension of benefits: “includes credit for time-served, such that the time served becomes a period served as the result of a conviction.” The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court was simply unwilling to treat the claimant's pretrial incarceration as having occurred after his conviction because doing so would require the court to add a phrase the General Assembly saw fit not to include. Such a result would violate long-standing principles of statutory construction. A contrary result would essentially punish an injured worker because he was unable to meet bail.

While the principle of only taking a suspension for an incarceration following a conviction seems simple, too often the self-help measure warranting a suspension is too tempting, once an employer receives word of an incarceration, either pre or post conviction. The claimant's practitioner must remain vigilant in policing any illegal suspensions and be willing to file a penalty petition should the employer take an automatic suspension to which it is not entitled.

Christian Petrucci, of the Law Offices of Christian Petrucci, concentrates his practice in the areas of workers' compensation and Social Security disability. He also counsels injured workers in matters involving employment discrimination and unemployment compensation benefits.