Philadelphia Housing Authority v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Butt)

Summary

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania reversed the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board’s order that had denied Philadelphia Housing Authority’s petition to terminate Shenecqua Butt’s workers’ compensation benefits. The Court held that the employer’s medical expert provided competent and sufficient evidence that Butt had fully recovered from her accepted April 2016 work-related lumbar conditions. The Court also concluded that the expert’s characterization of lumbar radiculopathy as preexisting did not render his opinion incompetent.

Holdings

1. An employer may establish entitlement to terminate workers’ compensation benefits through unequivocal and competent medical evidence that the claimant’s accepted work-related injuries have ceased or that any remaining disability is no longer related to those injuries.
2. A medical expert’s testimony is not incompetent merely because the expert characterizes a judicially accepted lumbar radiculopathy as preexisting rather than as a new work injury, so long as the expert acknowledges the accepted work-related condition and unequivocally opines that the claimant has recovered from it.
3. The appellate court may not reweigh evidence or disturb the WCJ’s credibility determinations when the WCJ’s findings are supported by substantial evidence.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the employer’s medical expert offered competent and sufficient evidence to establish that Butt had fully recovered from her judicially accepted work injuries and thereby support termination of workers’ compensation benefits.
2. Whether a medical expert’s characterization of an accepted lumbar radiculopathy as preexisting rather than as a new work injury rendered the expert’s termination opinion incompetent.

Disposition

reversed