In a decision that could have implications for Uber and Lyft drivers, among others, the Commonwealth Court has invalidated the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review’s method for calculating claimants’ net income from sideline businesses, finding that it improperly reduces benefits for claimants whose part-time businesses sell services rather than goods.
A three-judge panel of the court, in a published opinion in Lerch v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, also said the state Department of Labor & Industry regulation establishing that calculation method, adopted in 1968, was “identical”—save for a single Oxford comma—to a Bureau of Employment Security regulation that had been invalidated by the Pennsylvania Superior Court a few years earlier.
