In 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court propped open courthouse doors across the commonwealth for individuals who developed mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused cancer, and other occupational diseases that manifest more than 300 weeks after their employment ends. In ruling that these individuals (or their heirs and successors) could bypass Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Compensation Act (the act) and bring common-law actions against their employers for monetary damages incurred as a result of their exposure to asbestos and other hazardous materials, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court sent shockwaves through the commonwealth’s legal community.

Soon after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Tooey v. AK Steel, 81 A.3d 851 (Pa. 2013), the defense bar began calling for reforms to the act, in part because of a forecasted flood of employee actions against their employers brought on by Tooey. Heeding the call for reforms, albeit a few years later, a Republican state representative in 2018 proposed legislation that would have extended the act to bar the kinds of common-law suits that Tooey greenlighted.