Marcellus Shale Oil & Gas Employees and Pennsylvania Workers Compensation Jurisdiction

PA Workers' Compensation Jurisdiction over injured workers.
Marcellus Shale Oil and Gas employees have arrived in Pennsylvania to develop these natural resources. This industry has been touted as bringing jobs to areas of unemployment or lacking development. Many of the employment positions in the initial development require specialized skill sets. As a result, employers will often request that their experienced employees from other states travel to Pennsylvania to perform these jobs.

If this employee should suffer a work injury, what are the consequences?

Perhaps it is somewhat surprising that the answer is simple.

The Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act applies to all injuries occurring within the Commonwealth. The "residency" of the employee is not relevant to question of whether Pennsylvania law applies to a work injury that has occurred within Pennsylvania.

Section 101 of the Act reads: "[this act] ...shall apply to all injuries occurring within this Commonwealth, irrespective of the place where the contract of hire was made, renewed or extended and extraterritorially as provided by section 305.2".

The more complicated issue arises when there is a question of application of Pennsylvania workers compensation laws to an injury occurring outside of the boundaries of the Commonwealth. This circumstance requires review of the "extra-territorial" provisions of the Pennsylvania Act.

At times, the uninitiated reader may mistakenly interpret these provisions to apply to the analysis of compensibility of a work injury to the out-of-state employee, who is working within Pennsylvania.

No, the Pennsylvania Act applies to all injuries occurring within the Commonwealth.

The extra-territorial provisions apply Pennsylvania law to employees who suffer a work injury in another state, in specific circumstances. Section 305.2 is a difficultly worded passage. Simply stated, this provision allows for the application of Pennsylvania workers' compensation laws  where an employee is injured while working outside of the territorial boundaries of the commonwealth, if his/her employment is:

a. principally localized in this state, or

b. he/she is working under a contract of hire made in this state for employment that is not principally localized in any state, or

c. he/she is working under a contract of hire made in this state for employment principally localized in another state, whose work comp laws are not applicable to this employer, or

d. he/she is working under a contract of hire made in this state for employment outside of the United States and Canada.

Appellate Case Decisions:

One of the more recent cases to interpret the application of the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Extraterritorial provisions at Section 305.2 was reported at:  Williams v. WCAB (POHL Transportation) 4 A.3d 742 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2010).

In Williams, the court looked to the amount of time (in miles) that a truck driver spent in Ohio versus Pennsylvania to determine where his employment was "principally localized". The driver's log book reflected he spent 38% of his time in Pennsylvania, 32% of his work time was in Ohio and 30% of his work time was in 19 other states. The court noted that section 305.2 (d) (4) (iii) did not require that claimant spend the majority of his time working in Pennsylvania, rather it only requires a substantial portion of his working time. The court determined that the evidence presented met the statutory requirement for Pennsylvania jurisdiction over his injury claim.

A similar analysis and result was obtained in Goldberg v. WCAB (Star Enterprises) 696 A.2d 263 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1997). The employee was a Pennsylvania resident hired in NJ to set up and supervise a new program to expand full service and food service locations of the gas station owner. The majority of the store set-ups and business dealings were in  PA. The site of injury was a NJ store.The facts reflect the employee worked in Pa "as a rule and not an exception". This demonstrated the employment was "principally localized" in PA.

Practice Pointers:
1. If the injury occurred within the geographic boundaries of Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania workers' compensation law applies.
2. If the employment is principally localized in Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania law applies.
3. If the employment is not principally localized in any state and it is a contract of hire made in Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania law applies.
4. If the employment is principally localized in another state (whose laws do not apply to employer) and it is a contract of hire made in Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania law applies.

Any Questions?