Background
Natalie Braas, a registered nurse for the University of Pennsylvania, injured her neck, back, and related areas while moving a patient in 2021. The University later sought to terminate her workers’ compensation benefits, asserting that she had fully recovered. Two chiropractors also sought review of utilization determinations concerning the reasonableness and necessity of treatment. Those termination and utilization-review petitions proceeded before a workers’ compensation judge, commonly called a WCJ.
While briefing was underway, the parties reached a $225,000 settlement plus reimbursement of litigation costs. They filed a petition asking the WCJ to approve a compromise-and-release agreement, or C&R. The agreement resolved future compensation liability but expressly asked the judge to decide the pending termination and utilization-review disputes. After the parties complied with document-upload instructions, the WCJ stated that the agreement had to resolve every pending issue or would not be entertained.
The WCJ never held a settlement hearing. Instead, the judge decided the disputed petitions in the University’s favor and dismissed the approval petition without prejudice. The Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board vacated and remanded, reasoning that Section 449 of the Workers’ Compensation Act required an expedited, open hearing and a decision on the proposed agreement.
The Court’s Holding
An en banc Commonwealth Court affirmed the Board. Judge McCullough’s opinion emphasized Section 449’s mandatory language: once the parties submit a signed proposed compromise and release, the WCJ “shall” consider it in an open hearing, the Department must expedite that hearing, and a decision must issue within 30 days. Those commands protect a claimant by requiring the judge to determine that the claimant understands the agreement’s full legal significance.
The WCJ could not condition access to the statutory hearing on a requirement that the settlement resolve every pending petition. Neither the Workers’ Compensation Act nor its regulations impose an all-or-nothing settlement rule. Pennsylvania law favors voluntary resolution, and parties may settle some questions while expressly reserving others for adjudication. Administrative instructions governing document submission cannot add substantive conditions that the General Assembly omitted.
The court also rejected the University’s effort to preserve the WCJ’s merits rulings while requiring only a later settlement hearing. Because the agreement was filed before those rulings and could affect the status of the reserved petitions, the Board properly vacated the entire decision and directed reassignment to a different WCJ. On remand, that judge must first conduct the approval hearing and then determine whether the agreement leaves the termination and utilization-review petitions live or renders any of them moot.
Key Takeaways
- A WCJ must hold an expedited open hearing after parties submit a signed compromise-and-release agreement for approval.
- A judge cannot demand that a settlement dispose of every pending petition when the statute and regulations contain no such condition.
- Parties may resolve future liability while reserving identified termination, utilization-review, or reimbursement issues.
- The agreement’s actual language will determine on remand whether reserved litigation remains viable or has become moot.
Why It Matters
The decision gives Pennsylvania workers’ compensation practitioners a clear procedural priority when settlement overlaps with litigated petitions. Once an approval petition is filed, a WCJ cannot bypass the agreement by deciding the merits first. Counsel should insist on Section 449’s expedited timetable and create a record if local instructions effectively prevent a hearing.
Drafting remains critical. A C&R should identify with precision which liabilities are released, which disputes survive, and whether an employer preserves any claim to Supersedeas Fund reimbursement. Broad language settling all past, present, and future liability may make an outstanding petition moot, while an express reservation can preserve it. The holding protects negotiated settlements without predetermining the effect of any particular reservation.