Pennsylvania: For AWW Purposes, NFL Player is Not “Seasonal”

Acknowledging that in two earlier decisions, the Pennsylvania appellate court had held that NFL players are “seasonal” employees for purposes of competing their average weekly wage following a work-related injury, the appellate court said the circumstances in the instant case were different, allowing it to find that the NFL player’s AWW should be computing using 77 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 582(c), as opposed to subsection (e), since he was not a seasonal employee. The court stressed that the control exerted over the NFL player in the instant case was not just during the football season, as had been the case in the other two decisions. Here, the player was required to make public appearances and perform other services at the discretion of the employer. That meant he was not seasonal.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis

See Pittsburgh Steelers Sports, Inc. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (Trucks), 2020 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 14 (Jan. 3, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 93.02.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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