Pennsylvania high court awards comp benefits to deceased worker’s estate

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court awarded workers compensation benefits Friday to the estate of a pyrotechnics worker who died several years after a 2017 explosion.

Kristina Steets suffered catastrophic injuries to her arms, losing use of them, in the explosion and died of her injuries in late 2020 while her employer, Celebration Fireworks, was adjudicating benefits beyond the disability and medical, which had already been accepted as part of her workers comp claim, according to Steets, K., Aplt. v. Celebration Fireworks (WCAB).

When Ms. Steets died, a ruling was pending from the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board on loss-of-use benefits, which Pennsylvania requires employers to pay when an injured worker loses the use of a body part. The company paid burial benefits. Her estate, whose beneficiary was her sister, argued in court proceedings that the employer also owed a loss-of-use award.

After her death, a workers compensation judge had granted the post-mortem claim for funeral expenses but denied the loss-of-use claim. The appeals board affirmed that decision, citing case law.

The state’s highest court reversed, saying “plain terms” in state workers compensation law did “not categorially bar the recovery of specific loss benefits when a worker dies from her work-related injuries” and that lawmakers “expressly addressed the appropriate relief in cases when a worker dies while contested benefits have not been finally adjudicated.”

The court overruled two instances of case law and sent the matter back to a judge “to assess the amount of specific loss benefits due to the Estate” in terms of the loss-of-use award.