The Workers’ Compensation Act provides protections and remedies for workers injured in the course and scope of their employment. Due to the humanitarian purposes of the act, the courts have held that the act is remedial in nature and must be liberally construed in light most favorable to injured workers in order to effectuate its humanitarian objective. Despite these goals, within the act lie some provisions that seemingly contradict this intended purpose. This article sheds light on the position that the statutory imposed maximum compensation rate as set forth in the Workers’ Compensation Act is unconstitutional and violates equal protection principles set forth in the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions.

An injured worker falling into the top income bracket as delineated by the act is entitled to indemnity benefits equal to two-thirds of their wage loss. However, there is a disadvantageous and unjust provision lying in Section 105.1: if the employee earns more than a certain amount of income per week, they are no longer entitled to the two-thirds calculation and instead have their indemnity benefits artificially capped. In 2017, the weekly indemnity benefit rate was capped at $995. In 2018, the cap was $1,025.00. This means in 2018 an injured worker who earned more than $1,538 a week was not entitled to two-thirds of their weekly income but rather the statutory imposed maximum compensation rate or cap. What this has done in essence is punish those higher-paid individuals whose work provides a societal value for which they receive appropriate compensation, but if they sustain a disabling work injury they are treated unequally and more poorly than workers who earned less.