By: Roger D. Horgan

First responders like police, fire, and EMS crew’s respond to emergencies, so do ordinary citizens, often at great personal risk. What happens when these first responders are injured? Typically, their remedies are limited to workers compensation and health insurance. However, when the emergency is created by someone’s negligence, the first responders are permitted to recover damages from that negligent party.

If a rescuer responds to an auto accident caused by the negligence of one of the drivers, and is injured when one of the vehicles explodes, the rescuer will be able to recover damages from the negligent driver. It is reasonable to anticipate that there will be rescue efforts made following an accident caused by the negligence of a driver. It is only right that the person who created the emergency be held liable for damages sustained by those responding to the emergency.

However, there are limits to everything, including the rescue doctrine. A Pennsylvania Supreme Court case known as Bole v. Erie Ins. Exch., 616 Pa. 479, 50 A.3d 1256 (Pa. 2012) demonstrates those limits. The court held that the negligent party would be responsible for all reasonably anticipated dangers to rescuers, but not for dangers that were so unusual that they could not have been reasonably anticipated. In this case, Ronald Bole, a volunteer firefighter, was seriously injured when a bridge on his own property collapsed as he was driving to the firehouse to respond to an accident caused by a negligent driver. He intended to go first to the firehouse and then to the accident scene. The Court found that the collapse of the bridge on Mr. Bole’s own property was so unusual, so unexpected, and so remote from the accident itself that it had to be considered to be a “superseding cause” for which the negligent driver could not be held responsible.

The Court explained, “The rescue doctrine may allow recovery if the rescuer was struck by a car while driving to the scene, for that is reasonably foreseeable — it would not allow recovery if the rescuer was struck by a meteor as that is not reasonably foreseeable.”

At Abes Baumann, we pride ourselves on helping injured first responders and disabled veterans.

By: James R. Burn, Jr.

In recent years, many large corporations and insurance companies have been conspiring to write legislation—state-by-state—that would allow for employers to “opt out” of state workers’ compensation. These opt out laws would allow employers to write their own workers’ compensation laws.

Workers’ compensation laws across the country were written to protect injured workers’ rights and access to due process. Some states’ laws are better than others, however, because some states have handed over the ability to write Workers’ Compensation laws to the companies. This is like giving the fox the keys to the henhouse.

Early attempts in the State of Oklahoma created an incentive for companies and insurance companies to take these laws to other states in order to see if they could enact them, further restricting employee’s rights across the United States.

Studies clearly showed that the types of laws which employers were writing were incredibly restrictive on employees. The plans normally showed much lower benefits and fewer rights for the injured worker, which directly contradicts the humanitarian purposes of most workers’ compensation acts including the act here in Pennsylvania.

States have begun to strike down these restrictive and oppressive laws. The most recent court to do so was the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma, one of the states where these attempts began.

Please know that, despite recent State Supreme Court victories which is struck down such oppressive laws, we are fighting an enemy with unlimited financial resources. They will continue to attempt to find ways to write legislation and create difficulties, roadblocks, and obstacles for injured workers to get to just compensation they deserve. This firm will continue to fight with others in Pennsylvania and across the nation to prevent that from happening.

By: Roger D. Horgan

There is an abundance of attorneys in this region. It is fair to ask why one would choose to be represented by the attorneys from Abes Baumann, P. C. The best reason is that the attorneys of Abes Baumann are competent, experienced, and highly successful in obtaining favorable awards for our clients in difficult cases. Further, this firm has specialized in representing only those injured while at work, through the negligence of others, or those who are entitled to disability based benefits. We vigorously pursue claims including worker’s compensation, Social Security disability, veteran’s benefits, and, finally, personal injury actions such as automobile accidents, slip and fall cases, and industrial accidents.

Our commitment to this mission is enhanced and exemplified by our participation in numerous professional organizations dedicated to representing those injured on the job, by the negligence of others, or otherwise entitled to disability based benefits. These include the Pennsylvania Association for Justice, the Worker’s Injury Law and Advocacy Group, the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives, the National Organization of the Veterans Benefits, the National Football League Players Association, Workers’ Compensation Panel, the National Hockey League Players Association, Workers’ Compensation Panel, the Professional Hockey League Players Association, Workers’ Compensation Panel, and more.

We are on only one side; the side of individuals seeking just compensation for injuries and illnesses, and we are ready and able to take on the forces who would unjustly deny valid claims. Please call us.

By: Douglas A. Williams

Do you receive workers’ compensation benefits and pension benefits or benefits from a 401k or some other retirement plan? If your injury occurred after June 24, 1996, your employer and the workers’ compensation insurance carrier may try to reduce your compensation benefits based on your receipt of pension or retirement benefits. If this happens to you, here are a few things to keep in mind:

–The insurance company can only reduce your workers’ compensation to the extent that the employer for whom you were working at the time of the injury funded the retirement. Thus, if you are receiving money from a 401k plan, but the employer for whom you were working at the time of your injury didn’t contribute any money to the 401k plan, your workers’ compensation benefits can’t be reduced. Similarly, if you work out of a union hall and your retirement is funded by multiple different employers, your workers’ compensation can only be reduced based on the percentage of funding attributable to your time-of-injury employer.

–It is not uncommon for employers and/or insurance carriers to miscalculate the amount of the pension offset. Not surprisingly, when a miscalculation occurs, it usually benefits the employer/insurance carrier. In other words, it’s not uncommon for the insurance carrier to reduce an injured workers’ compensation to a greater degree than is allowed under the law. You do not have to accept that the insurance carrier accurately calculated the offset. You have the right to challenge those calculations.

–If you are an employee of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it is, in our opinion, very likely that your employer is taking a larger offset than is permitted under the law. In multiple cases that we have identified, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has taken an offset based on the Maximum Single Life Annuity (MSLA), or the maximum amount of cash that a person could receive in pension benefits each month. The Commonwealth has taken such an offset even in cases in which the injured employee elects to receive a different payment option (i.e. one that pays less cash each month). We believe that it is a violation of the law for the Commonwealth to do so and Abes Baumann is currently litigating this issue in several cases.

If you are an injured worker who receives some sort of retirement benefit, contact our firm and we will help you determine whether or not the insurance company has accurately calculated your benefit rate.

By: James R. Burn, Jr.

Often, injured workers were working two jobs at the time of their injury. Unfortunately, when many people are injured at one job, their injuries are severe enough to keep them from being able to perform the tasks of their other job.

Fortunately, in the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, there is a provision that allows for “concurrent earnings.” The general rule is that an injured worker will receive two thirds of their earnings from both jobs, subject to any maximum benefit limits. If you earn $600.00 per week working as a mechanic and you break your arm, you would be entitled to list wages benefits of $400.00. However, if you had a second job, which the broken arm also prevented you from doing, say a warehouse loader at $300.00 per week, you would be entitled to an additional $200.00 per week in lost wages.

Many of our clients are reluctant to inform their other employers that they have suffered a work injury. We remind our clients that getting wage information from other employers is important to allow us to ensure that they are paid the highest and most accurate amount of workers’ compensation disability benefits possible under the act.

We are happy to speak with anyone who finds themselves in this position and would be willing to walk them through the steps they need to take to be sure that there workers’ compensation disability benefits are being calculated accurately.