Pennsylvania: “Protz Fix” Passes Constitutional Muster

Pennsylvania’s “Protz Fix,” which amended the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act so as to require a physician’s use of the Sixth Edition of the AMA Guides to determine the respective level of impairment for an injured worker [see 77 Pa. Stat. § 511.3], was not an act improperly delegating legislative authority, held the state’s Commonwealth Court recently. The General Assembly had appropriately adopted existing standards as its own in the exercise of its power to legislate, said the Court. The Court added that the Sixth Edition of the Guides existed as of the time the General Assembly amended the Act. Were the AMA to publish a new edition, the Sixth Edition would still be the standard in Pennsylvania. The amendment accordingly passed constitutional muster.

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 Advance.

See Pennsylvania AFL-CIO v. Commonwealth, 2019 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 913 (Oct. 11, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 80.07.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see