Hearing Loss & Notice

Crompton v. WCAB(King), which came down on August 5, 2008 from our Commonwealth Court, has affirmed some important principles regarding notice in the field of hearing loss. Essentially, the employee must be advised by a health care provider that he or she has work related hearing loss in order to trigger the employee’s obligation to give notice to the employer. It is not enough that the employee believes he or she has work related hearing loss. Also, if the employee continues to be exposed to harmful noise in the work place, this is a continuing injury, so the date of injury is the last date of exposure. See the case here

Traveling Employee

In a recent case, L. Jamison v. WCAB (Gallagher Home Health Services) - 399 C.D. 2008, our Commonwealth Court looked at the issue of whether a home health care aide was in the course of her employment when she was injured in an auto accident while on the way to see a patient. The court was careful to say that these situations must be judged on a case-by-case basis, so I won’t review the facts here. The Court seemed to affirm however that if you do not have a fixed place of business, and you are injured while either going to or coming from an appointment for your employer, you may well be deemed to be in the course of employment and therefore be entitled to benefits. I think this case is essentially consistent with the way the law has been applied in the past in analyzing traveling employee claims.