Suspension of Benefits

The whole idea behind workers’ compensation benefits is to help workers stay on their feet and continue to be healthy financially while recovering from or still being affected by an injury. This injury would change their ability to work, so the workers’ compensation benefits would help cover the difference between present and past earnings, as well as replacing wages if the worker is unable to perform a job.

In general, though, benefits are lessened when a worker is able to bring in some income. The general rule is that workers’ compensation benefits equal 2/3 of the difference between post-injury and pre-injury pay. This is designed to help the worker but also not give workers an incentive to make fraudulent claims by overcompensating injured employees.

In an interesting court case in Pennsylvania recently, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued a judgment that suspended all workers’ compensation benefits to a previously injured worker after it was discovered that the employee had returned to work. The problem here is that the court and the workers’ compensation insurance company did not know how much pay the worker received after going back to work- they had no way of knowing if the pay was equal or less to the previous amount.

The court ruled that the burden of proof is on the claimant to show both employment and pay scale to determine workers’ compensation benefit eligibility and continuation.

Contact Us

If you have had your workers’ compensation benefits suspended unfairly, or if you have any questions about the complex legal issues surrounding workers’ compensation law, contact the Pennsylvania workers’ compensation lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. by calling 610-667-7511 today.