The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is slated to convene in Harrisburg this week week for its final oral argument session of the year.

The justices are slated to consider 12 matters between Tuesday and Wednesday, dealing with issues including the scope of immunity for mental health care providers and workers’ compensation coverage for nonprescription substances like CBD oil.

Immunity for Mental Health Treatment

On Tuesday the justices are set to examine whether an Allentown hospital can be held liable for the death of a patient who allegedly died from bed sores he obtained during his treatment for dementia.

The defendants in Wunderly v. Saint Luke's Hospital of Bethlehem had successfully fended off the plaintiff's claims by arguing they were immune under the Mental Health Procedures Act shields, but the plaintiff asserts that the lower courts got it wrong.

According to the Superior Court’s opinion, decedent Kenneth Wunderly was involuntarily admitted to St. Luke’s Hospital under the MDPA to be treated for aggressive behavior related to his dementia. The plaintiff alleged that during Wunderly’s stay at St. Luke’s, the hospital negligently failed to prevent him from developing pressure ulcers.

However, St. Lukes asserted that it was shielded from the plaintiff's claims because the MDPA immunizes health care providers from liability for care performed under the act. The plaintiff countered that MDPA immunity did not apply because Wunderly’s pressure injuries were not the result of his mental health treatment.

The Superior Court disagreed with the plaintiff, ruling that the prevention of pressure wounds was part of the mental health care St. Luke provided to Wunderly and was therefore covered by the MDPA's immunity provision. The ruling upheld a trial court’s grant of judgment on the pleadings in favor of the defendants, which the plaintiff is now seeking to undo in the Supreme Court.

Swartz Culleton is representing the plaintiff, and Kilcoyne & Nesbitt and Lamb McErlane are representing St. Luke’s.

Benefits for Work-Related Death

After Wunderly, the high court is slated to consider whether specific loss benefits are available to the estates of workers’ compensation claimants who died from work-related injuries.

The appeal in Steets v. Celebration Fireworks challenges a split Commonwealth Court ruling in which the majority held that the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act did not require an employer to pay posthumous benefits over its employee’s lost use of her arms.

Claimant Kristina Steets had sustained severe injuries in an explosion at the fireworks factory where she worked according to the Commonwealth Court's opinion. Steets' employer, Celebration Fireworks Inc., paid her temporary total disability benefits following the accident, and a workers’ compensation judge ruled that Steets would be entitled to specific loss benefits once her total disability benefits ended.

Steets died several years after the explosion from respiratory issues related to her work, and her estate sought payment of her specific loss benefits.

But a workers' compensation judge denied the estate’s request for payment of the specific loss benefits, with the exception of a claim for funeral expenses, ruling that specific loss benefits may be paid only when the claimant died from something other than a work-related injury. Both the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board and the Commonwealth Court affirmed.

However, Judge Ellen Ceisler, joined by President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, disagreed with the Commonwealth Court’s majority ruling.

Ceisler wrote in a dissent that the section of the Workers’ Compensation Act dealing with how to distribute benefits when a claimant dies does not limit payment to a specific cause of death.

The Law Offices of Daniel J. Siegel and Strubinger Law are representing Steets’ estate in the appeal, and Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby is representing Celebration Fireworks.

Workers’ Comp Coverage for CBD

The Supreme Court’s Wednesday lineup begins with a case that could significantly expand the kinds of treatments for which injured workers can receive compensation.

In Schmidt v. Schmidt, Kirifides and Rassias, the justices are set to review a split Commonwealth Court ruling determining that an employer violated the Workers' Compensation Act by failing to reimburse its employee for CBD oil he used to treat a workplace injury. And the issues on appeal deal with more than just CBD oil.

The first of three questions before the court in the matter is whether the terms "medical services" and "medicines and supplies" in the Workers' Compensation Act "include cannabinoid oil (CBD oil), specifically, as well as dietary supplements, generally, and products that may be purchased without a prescription from a healthcare provider."

The claimant, attorney Mark Schmidt, asserted that his employer Schmidt, Kirifides & Rassias has a duty to reimburse him for CBD he used to treat a workplace injury. But Schmidt Kirifides contended CBD was not a “medicine” or “supply” subject to reimbursement under the Workers’ Compensation Act.

The Commonwealth Court rejected the law firm’s arguments that "supplies" had never been interpreted to include nonprescription substances that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The majority held that in Schmidt's case, CBD counted as both a medicine and a supply.

Schmidt is representing himself in the matter, and Elias Mickle Kennedy partner John Kennedy is representing Schmidt Kirifides.