Last month, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court provided the claimants’ bar with a warning regarding the litigation of penalty petitions and the requisite burden of proof when it directed to be reported the matter of Skay v. Borjeson & Maizel v. (Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board), No. 999 C.D. 2021 (1/28/22). Skay was originally decided as nonprecedential opinion in May, most likely due to the mundanity of the dispute. It now offers a cautionary tale.
Unfortunately, the facts of Skay are all too common, which may have led to the unfortunate result. The claimant was injured in 2009, and by 2013 had an extremely serious accepted injury that included “status post L5-S1 fusion” and “reflex sympathetic dystrophy” of the left leg. Subsequently, two utilization review determinations were requested and completed, both of which found an assortment of medications prescribed to the claimant to be reasonable and necessary. None were found unreasonable.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]