# Hebden v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · November 12, 1993 · 534 Pa. 327

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9766414

## Case

- **Full name:** Thomas HEBDEN, Appellant, v. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (BETHENERGY MINES, INC.), Appellee
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** November 12, 1993
- **Citations:** 534 Pa. 327; 632 A.2d 1302; 1993 Pa. LEXIS 232
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Cappy
- **Judges:** Nix, Larsen, Flaherty, Zappala, Papadakos, Cappy, Montemuro
- **Cited by:** 76 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9766414

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- applying issue preclusion to bar a modification/termination petition seeking to relitigate the original medical diagnosis under lying a WCJ’s finding of disability and noting that failure to do so would result in claimants continually being harassed with petitions and hearings…

## Opinion text

CAPPY, Justice,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion. I would likewise reverse the judgment and order of the Commonwealth Court based upon the unrefuted and unrebutted testimony of Appellant’s expert, Dr. Klemens, that pneumoconiosis is irreversible (R. 30a-31), which testimony was corroborated by employer’s expert, Dr. Ketter (R. 23a). I agree that an opening of the original, unappealed determination that Appellant suffered from work-related pneumoconiosis constituted impermissible relitigation.
I write separately to point out that there may be circumstances where a once irreversible disease may, due to advances in medical science, become reversible and, in such event, an employer should have the right to establish that fact at a subsequent workmen’s compensation termination hearing.
NIX, C.J., and FLAHERTY and MONTEMURO, JJ., join.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9766414. Public record. Not legal advice.