The workers\u2019 compensation legal systems in most states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, are complex. And a high-profile example of why workers\u2019 compensation is so complex was revisited on February 20, when a seven-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ordered the state Appeal Board to reconsider the twice-denied claim of a woman who went through a harrowing ordeal at the check-cashing business where she worked.<\/p>\n
Pamela Murphy\u2019s original claim arose out of an incident in June 2010. An armed man accosted her and her husband in the parking lot of Ace Check Cashing, Inc., in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where she was the store manager at the time. The robber handcuffed and tied up Murphy\u2019s husband, left him in the family\u2019s parked car, and forced Murphy to unlock doors and deactivate alarms at the check cashing firm, ultimately giving the robber access to the firm\u2019s cash vault. At various points, the robber pointed a gun at or threatened to kill Murphy or her husband. <\/p>\n
Once the robber obtained possession of the firm\u2019s cash, he hog-tied Murphy and abandoned her. Murphy managed to free herself and call 911 on her cell phone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After her experience, Murphy contacted the company\u2019s president to inform him of the robbery; she was also taken to the hospital, experiencing chest pains as well as difficulty breathing and speaking. Murphy\u2019s treatment included care for injuries to her back and shoulders as well as medication for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).<\/p>\n
Murphy stated that she has nightmares, panic attacks and difficulty concentrating. She suffers from a fear of returning to work as well as the belief that the gunman may find her at home. She added that her bout with PTSD was compounded by the fact that her son-in-law was killed six years before her experience while working as a courier for the same business. <\/p>\n
Murphy lost her workers\u2019 compensation claim before a workers\u2019 compensation judge and then an appeals board. In denying her claim, both stated that Murphy\u2019s physical injuries were unrelated to the incident. The judge and appeal board both accepted the fact that Murphy suffered from PTSD, but they said that her employer\u2019s training and security measures were proof that robberies were not an abnormal working condition at her place of employment.<\/p>\n
While upholding the opinion regarding Murphy\u2019s physical injuries, the Commonwealth Court ordered that her claim be re-examined concerning the mental harm she sustained. The court pointed to a previous case in which a state trooper\u2019s workers\u2019 compensation claim was ultimately upheld after contention. In that case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that the trooper had a valid basis for filing a claim due to PTSD caused by a mentally disturbed individual who was struck and killed after running in front of the state trooper\u2019s car for no apparent reason.<\/p>\n
An individual with a workers\u2019 compensation claim in litigation should always seek representation from a law firm specializing in workers\u2019 compensation law to help them through the complex process. <\/p>\n
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Los sistemas jur\u00eddicos de indemnizaci\u00f3n por accidentes de trabajo en la mayor\u00eda de los estados, incluidos Nueva Jersey y Pensilvania, son complejos. Y el 20 de febrero se volvi\u00f3 a poner de relieve un ejemplo muy sonado de por qu\u00e9 la indemnizaci\u00f3n por accidentes de trabajo es tan compleja, cuando un tribunal compuesto por siete jueces del Tribunal del Estado de Pensilvania orden\u00f3 a la Junta de Apelaci\u00f3n estatal que reconsiderara la reclamaci\u00f3n, denegada en dos ocasiones, de una mujer que\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[165,167,164,166,163,168],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-workers-compensation","tag-ace-check-cashing","tag-appeal-board","tag-commonwealth-court","tag-pamela-murphy","tag-pennsylvania-supreme-court","tag-ptsd"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853,"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petrilloandgoldberg.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}