Section 306(f.1)(8) of the Worker’s Compensation Act provides that if the employee refuses reasonable medical treatment, he shall forfeit “all rights to compensation for any injury or any increase in his incapacity shown to have resulted from such refusal.” A petition seeking to enforce this section of the act is commonly referred to as a “forfeiture” or Muse petition, after the 1987 case from which it gets its name, Muse v. W.C.A.B. The previously unreported case of Bereznicki v. W.C.A.B. (Eat ‘N Park Hospitality Group), which was decided in an unreported decision in October 2009, but reported Jan. 12, threatens to stand forfeiture litigation on its head.
A Muse petition has always required an employer to meet a difficult burden of proof. It begins with the simple demonstration through substantial evidence that there is a medical procedure available to the claimant. This burden is usually not met with an IME doctor’s opinion that a certain medical procedure would be beneficial, since the IME doctor does not establish a doctor-patient relationship.
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