Back in 2007, the Commonwealth Court case of Cinram Manufacturing Inc. v. W.C.A.B. (Hill) held that a workers’ compensation judge, or WCJ, did not err in expanding the claimant’s accepted work injury from a lumbar strain to a herniated disc during the pendency of a termination petition, despite the fact that the claimant never filed a review petition seeking to expand the injury. Given that Cinram seemed to be at odds with the Supreme Court’s holding in Jeanes Hospital v. W.C.A.B. (Hass) , which was the seminal case dealing with an amendment to the accepted description of injury, the court granted the employer’s petition for allowance of appeal from the order of the Commonwealth Court. Last month, the Supreme Court upheld Cinram , thereby putting the issue to rest. Its implications are significant and represent an unequivocal victory for injured workers.

By way of background, the Cinram case began when the claimant suffered a work injury March 24, 2004. The employer issued a notice of compensation payable, or NCP, describing the injury as a “lumbar strain/sprain.” On Aug. 13, 2004, the employer filed a petition to terminate compensation benefits based on the opinions of two doctors that the claimant had recovered from his work injury. The claimant presented the deposition testimony of his treating orthopedic surgeon to rebut the notion of full recovery and to opine that claimant’s work injury was actually a herniated lumbar disc.

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