Lykins v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board

NIGRO, Justice,

concurring.

The Majority concludes that when Appellant’s substantive rights to receive workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation benefits accrued is irrelevant, since Appellant is exempted from the class of workers’ compensation claimants to whom the change in indemnity compensation payable under the amended Section 204(a) is applicable. While I agree that Appellant herein is exempted, I am compelled nonetheless to write to emphasize that the analysis employed by the Commonwealth Court in its published opinion is erroneous and contrary to established case law.

While the Commonwealth Court recognized that a claimant’s right to recover workers’ compensation benefits and unemployment compensation benefits is a substantive right, the Commonwealth Court found that Act 44 was not applied retroactively since this Appellant never established a substantive right to receive both workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation benefits prior to Act 44.

The Statutory Construction Act provides that when substantive rights are involved, the law in effect at the time the cause of action arises controls. Bell v. Koppers Co., Inc., 481 Pa. 454 , 392 A.2d 1380 (1978). 1 A claimant’s right to workers’ *7 compensation benefits is a substantive right which vests at the time of injury. Id.

Although the Commonwealth Court herein recognized that nothing in Act 44 indicates the Legislature intended to apply § 204(a) retroactively, rather than addressing the retroactivity of Act 44, the Commonwealth Court focused on the date Appellant qualified for unemployment compensation benefits as the controlling event. The Commonwealth Court explained:

(T)his case does not present the situation where Employer is seeking to retroactively apply amended § 204 to defeat a fixed, substantive right of Claimant. Instead, Employer simply took advantage of its right to a credit under § 204 when the event that triggered the right occurred, i.e., Claimant qualifying for and receiving unemployment compensation benefits, months after the amendment became effective.

Lykins v. Workmen’s Comp., 671 A.2d 253 at 257 (Pa.Cmwlth. 1997).

The Commonwealth Court’s determination that the triggering event is the date on which a claimant qualifies and receives unemployment compensation benefits is erroneous and contrary to case law. In Bell v. Koppers Co., Inc., id. we held that an amendment to the Workers’ Compensation Act giving employers complete immunity to suit did not bar joinder of an employer in a suit where the injuries occurred prior to the amendment’s effective date. In Bell , this Court emphasized that although suit was filed against the employer after the effective date of the amendment to the Act, the proper focus is on the date of the injury. Id. at 459 , 392 A.2d at 1382-83 .

Similarly, in Gibson v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 490 Pa. 156 , 415 A.2d 80 (1980), this Court emphatically stated “the Legislature may not extinguish a right of action which *8 has already accrued to a claimant.” Id. at 161 , 415 A.2d at 88 . In Gibson , plaintiffs’ substantive rights to file tort claims against Commonwealth agencies accrued before promulgation of the Sovereign Immunity Act, and those rights could not be extinguished by retroactive application of the recently enacted Sovereign Immunity Act. Finding plaintiffs’ rights accrued on the date of injury, we stressed “(t)hough the date of a complaint’s institution is relevant to tolling of a statute of limitations, it has no place in the determination of (plaintiffs’) substantive rights.” Id. at 165 , 415 A.2d at 85 .

Thus, the triggering event is not the date a claimant qualifies to receive unemployment compensation benefits, rather, it is the date of the work injury. Here, Appellant’s receipt of workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation are connected by a single event, his July 21, 1991 work injury. Thus, the work injury was the link in the chain of events that led to Appellant’s receipt of both workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation benefits. Just as the right to receive workers’ compensation benefits triggers on the date of the injury, the right to receive unemployment compensation benefits triggers on the date of the injury, regardless of when Appellant qualifies for unemployment benefits.

Contrary to our decisions in Bell and Gibson , in the case sub judice, the Commonwealth Court improperly focused on the date claimant qualified for unemployment compensation benefits. Accordingly, I join in reversing the decision of the Commonwealth Court.

. A substantive right is implicated when the retroactive application of a statute imposes new legal burdens on past transactions or occurrences. McMahon v. McMahon, 417 Pa.Super. 592, 600 , 612 A.2d 1360, 1364 (1992). In contrast, procedural statutes simply establish a method for *7 enforcing rights but have no impact on whether a claimant has a legal entitlement to relief under the facts of a particular action. Page’s Dep’t Store v. Velardi, 464 Pa. 276, 285 , 346 A.2d 556, 560 (1975).