Hannaberry HVAC v. WCAB (Snyder, Jr.)

• Citation: 575 Pa. 66,834 A.2d 524
• Parties: HANNABERRY HVAC and Donegal Mutual Insurance Companies v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (SNYDER, JR.), Appeal of Charles Snyder, Jr.
• Decision Date: 22 October 2003
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

834 A.2d 524

575 Pa. 66

HANNABERRY HVAC and Donegal Mutual Insurance Companies v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (SNYDER, JR.),

Appeal of Charles Snyder, Jr.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued May 14, 2002.

Decided October 22, 2003.

Kurt Edward Clawson, Norristown, for Charles Snyder, Jr.

John T. Kupchinsky, Irwin William Aronson, Camp Hill, for PA AFL-CIO, appellant amicus curiae.

James A. Holzman, Harrisburg, Janet Marie Tarczy, Carlisle, for W.C.A.B.

Brian J. Lenahan, for Hannaberry HVAC, et al.

Before: CAPPY, C.J., and CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR and EAKIN, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

Justice CASTILLE.

This Court granted review to determine whether, in amending Section 309(d) of the Workers' Compensation Act ("Act"), see 77 P.S. § 582(d), the General Assembly intended that a seriously and permanently injured full-time worker, whose full-time employment was preceded by part-time after-school employment, should be penalized by having the periods of part-time employment included in the calculation of his average weekly wage. Citing to the overall humanitarian purpose of the Act and the unusual circumstances presented here, both the Workers' Compensation Judge ("WCJ") and the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board ("WCAB") construed the amended Act as not requiring that the part-time wages be included in the computation of average wages. A panel of the Commonwealth Court reversed, holding that the Act permits no distinction between full-time and part-time employment and, accordingly, the calculation of appellant's average weekly wage must include earlier quarters of employment during which he was a part-time employee. For the following reasons, we reverse.

The industrious appellant worked on a part-time basis for Hannaberry HVAC ("employer") while he was a high school student. On June 20, 1996, after graduating from high school, appellant accepted a full-time position with employer. Appellant's work schedule had varied greatly during his part-time employment, with his paychecks generally increasing as graduation neared. Thus, in the three quarterly periods preceding his entry into full-time employment, appellant's average weekly wages were: $57.25 (for the period from September 20, 1995 to December 20, 1995); $96.87 (December 20, 1995 to March 20, 1996); and $110.56 (March 20, 1996 to June 20, 1996). In contrast, appellant's average weekly wage for the calendar quarter after he assumed full-time status, the period from June 20, 1996 until September 20, 1996, increased more than four-fold, to $473.65.

On September 20, 1996, appellant suffered a devastating work injury when a forklift fell on him, injuring his spinal cord and rendering him quadriplegic. Appellant was nineteen years old. There has never been any dispute concerning the severity of the injury, its work-relatedness and permanence, or appellant's entitlement to workers' compensation benefits. The dispute is limited to the amount of the benefit. Employer issued a notice of compensation payable acknowledging appellant's injury and calculating his average weekly wage as $207.03 with a corresponding compensation rate of $186.33. Appellant filed a claim petition challenging employer's computation of the average weekly wage. During the litigation, employer amended the average weekly wage to $229.43 with a corresponding compensation benefit rate of $206.49. Employer based its calculation upon the highest three quarters of employment in the previous year, two of which were periods of part-time employment. Appellant contended that his average weekly wage should be calculated based solely upon the quarter coinciding with his full-time employment, which was also the most recent quarter. Appellant argued that including his part-time high school employment in calculating his average weekly wage artificially decreased the wages he actually earned as a full-time worker, which was the status he enjoyed when injured, and would consign him to a lifetime of insufficient compensation.

The WCJ agreed with appellant and calculated his average weekly wage as $473.65, with a corresponding compensation rate of $315.76. The WCJ based the average weekly wage solely on claimant's last calendar quarter of work. The WCJ noted that "the very unusual circumstances" of the case made it a "difficult one." The WCJ recognized that the Act, as amended, does not explicitly distinguish between part-time and full-time employment in providing for the calculation of a claimant's average weekly wage. But, the WCJ concluded, it would be "manifestly unfair" to ignore the "dramatic" distinction between part-time employment as a full-time student and full-time adult employment in this context. In the WCJ's view, the benefit due appellant should "reflect his adult earnings [and] not his after school activities." WCJ Op., 15.

Employer and its insurer appealed to the WCAB, which affirmed. Stressing the "recognized humanitarian intent of the Act," the WCAB held that the WCJ had correctly decided the matter and, accordingly, adopted the WCJ's opinion. WCAB Op., 1-3.

Upon further appeal, a panel of the Commonwealth Court reversed in a published opinion. Hannaberry HVAC v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Bd. (Snyder, Jr.), 767 A.2d 650 (Pa.Cmwlth.2001). The panel noted that the amended Act neither explicitly addressed, nor made a distinction between, part-time and full-time employment. The panel further noted that the 1996 statutory formula, which required that the three highest of the last four quarters of employment be averaged in calculating a claimant's wages, represented a deliberate change in policy from the prior legislation, which had calculated wages premised upon the single highest earnings quarter of employment in the previous year. The panel deemed itself constrained to hold, as a matter of law, that appellant's periods of part-time employment during the year preceding his injury could not be excluded from the calculation of his average weekly wages.

In reaching this conclusion, the panel opined that the legislative history behind the 1996 amendments revealed that the General Assembly sought to prevent individuals from receiving more through workers' compensation than they would have earned had they remained in the workforce. This situation could arise under the previous computational formula since a claimant could cite the highest quarter during the year preceding the injury, even if that quarter reflected aberrationally high wages: i.e., the claimant may have earned inflated wages due to overtime, a one-time bonus, a temporary assignment to a higher wage position (as on a prevailing-wage contract), etc. In support of its conclusion that such was the legislative intent, the panel quoted the following remarks made by one senator during the legislative debates:

Now, how do you get people back to work when they can make $527 a week by doing nothing, or going back to work and making $400? I do not think that is fair and I think we should try to change that, and under this bill we are going to level that playing field and use three of the last four quarters to determine your average salary instead of just using one high peaked quarter, and many times on that peak they would use bonuses and vacation time and peak it even higher.

Hannaberry HVAC, 767 A.2d at 653, quoting Senate Legislative Journal, June 10, 1996, p. 2156 (remarks of Sen. Armstrong).

The panel further noted that there was nothing in the legislative history to suggest that the General Assembly had considered the part-time to full-time employment paradigm presented here. The panel recognized the "inadequacy" of the 1996 amendment to the Act as so construed in a case such as this, as it results in a "grossly unfair average weekly wage for certain workers." 767 A.2d at 654 n. 4. The panel nevertheless felt such a grossly unfair result was commanded by the legislation. Id.

In workers' compensation appeals, this Court will affirm the adjudication below unless we find that an error of law was committed, that constitutional rights were violated, that a practice or procedure of a Commonwealth agency was not followed or that any necessary finding of fact is not supported by substantial evidence of record. 2 Pa.C.S. § 704; Mitchell v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Bd. (Steve's Prince of Steaks), 572 Pa.380, 815 A.2d 620, 623-24 (2003); Reinforced Earth Co. v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Bd. (Astudillo), 570 Pa.464, 810 A.2d 99, 104 (2002) (plurality opinion). Here, the facts are undisputed and neither party has alleged a constitutional violation or that an agency practice or procedure was not followed. The sole issue is whether the Commonwealth Court committed an error of law in determining that the amended Act commands a conclusion that appellant's earnings while a part-time scholastic employee must be included in the calculation of his average weekly wages for purposes of determining the benefit due him following his permanent, disabling work injury. Since this is a question of law, our review is plenary. See Murphy v. Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost, 565 Pa. 571, 777 A.2d 418, 429 (2001) (citation omitted); Thompson v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Bd. (USF & G Co.), 566 Pa.420, 781 A.2d 1146, 1150 (2001) (citing Universal Am-Can, Ltd. v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Bd. (Minteer), 563 Pa.480, 762 A.2d 328, 331 n. 2 (2000)).

We begin by noting that there is no escaping the harshness of the result that the Commonwealth Court deemed to be statutorily commanded here. Appellant was, and had been for three months, a continuous full-time employee when he suffered his devastating work injury. Had the Act not been amended, the three month period during which he was a full-time employee would have provided the measure for calculating his average wage, and not just because it was the most recent quarter, or the only quarter during which he was a full-time employee, but because the most favorable quarter to the...