A little over a year ago, the state Superior Court decided the case of Patton v. Worthington Associates, 43 A.3d 479 (2012), which essentially modified the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s seminal 1930 case dealing with the statutory employer doctrine, McDonald v. Levinson Steel. Given that the Superior Court does not have the authority to modify Supreme Court precedent, last Friday, the high court issued an order granting the petition for allowance of appeal filed in the case. The per curiam order citing the issue, as stated by the petitioner, read:
"Whether the Superior Court majority’s precedential opinion has sub silentio nullified the statutory employer doctrine and effectively overruled this court’s decision in McDonald v. Levinson Steel, 153 A. 424 (Pa. 1930), by grafting a fact question onto the McDonald analysis that can never be answered in a way that allows the statutory employer doctrine to apply."
