determining that painter who fell from a ladder and was compensated for such injury under the WCA could not bring a common law claim for resulting impotency
How later courts described this case
- determining that painter who fell from a ladder and was compensated for such injury under the WCA could not bring a common law claim for resulting impotency
- suggesting that the WCA has “immunized some [employers] to make possible resources to benefit many, who [were] heretofore without possible or practical remedies”
- Act provided exclusive remedy for employee injured by negligent conduct of co-employee; employee precluded from maintaining civil action against employer even where the injury (impotence) was not a compen-sable injury under the Act
- Occupational Disease Act has application only to those diseases identified therein and was not intended to bar trespass actions brought upon diseases not covered by the Act
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
NIX, Justice,
concurring.
I question an analysis of the instant case which frames the issue as being whether the injury is covered under the Workmen’s Compensation Act (Act). Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S. § 1 et seq. In my judgment, the instant complaint goes to the adequacy of the legislative remedial provision allowed in cases such as this. I agree with the majority that the Superior Court decision should be affirmed.
Here, the Act including its exclusivity clause, 77 P.S. § 481(a), is clearly applicable to the instant injury. The pelvic injuries were sustained during a fall which occurred within the course of the employment. During the time that appellant was disabled as a result of the injury in question, he in fact did apply for and did receive benefits. The matter in controversy, i.e., the resultant impotence, is not an independent injury but rather a residual consequence of the initial injury.
The Act recognizes losses of this nature and provides for them pursuant to section 306(b), 77 P.S. § 512. Under section 306(b), this would clearly qualify as a permanent partial disability. Scott v. Powell Coal Co., 402 Pa. 73 , 166 A.2d 31 (1960). However, since compensation under this section is computed upon the loss of weekly earnings resulting from the condition, appellant who has not sustained a loss of his earnings as a result of the impotence does not qualify for compensation under that section. See Scott v. Powell Coal Co., supra.
[A] claimant who has suffered a permanent partial disability, such as the loss of the senses of taste and smell, *258 or the loss of the use of any functional part of the body, as a result of an accident suffered in the course of his employment, may still recover for that loss under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, but he cannot receive an award if his earnings were equal to or in excess of his weekly earnings before the accident, (Emphasis added). Id., 402 Pa. at 75 , 166 A.2d at 33 .
The nature and extent of the remedy provided by the General Assembly in a remedial statute is within the sound judgment of the legislature. That discretion should not be intruded upon by the judicial branch. The urged recognition of a common law cause of action would, in fact, constitute that type of unwarranted and impermissible intrusion.