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The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court which decides the majority of Pennsylvania’s appellate Workers’ Compensation cases found in 2007 that the Workers’ Compensation Judge was correct in imposing penalties and counsel fees for violation of the Workers’ Compensation Act when it was admitted that the injury took place, that the injured worker had missed time from work, and then the employer filed a temporary notice of compensation payable, only to later revoke it and issue a “qualified denial”.

The Court found that this type of claims administration merited imposition of the maximum 50% penalty and imposed a $3,000 attorneys fee to be paid by the employer’s insurance company.

This decision may put an end to the common practice by employers and their insurers of aggressive use of qualified denials when forms like the NTCP and Medicals only Notice of Compensation Payables are available. Certainly the case stands to discourage employers hedging their bets by the creative use of Bureau forms.