Gadonas v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Board

931 A.2d 95, 2007 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 415
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedAugust 1, 2007
StatusPublished

This text of 931 A.2d 95 (Gadonas v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gadonas v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Board, 931 A.2d 95, 2007 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 415 (Pa. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION BY

Judge SMITH-RIBNER.

Glen Gadonas petitions for review of an order entered by the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Board) that reversed in part the order of Workers’ Compensation Judge John Liebau (WCJ) granting the petition to review benefit offset. The Board held that Boeing Defense & Space Group (Employer) is entitled to an offset against Gadonas’ workers’ compensation benefits for disability pension benefits that he received, and it modified the WCJ’s order to reflect that only those monthly disability pension benefits received by Ga-donas within sixty days prior to November 24, 2003, the date of a $4500 deposit to his Individual Retirement Account (IRA), qualify as a rollover not subject to offset. The question involved is whether the Board erred by holding that the full amount of the $4500 that Gadonas deposited into his IRA did not qualify as a rollover.

I

Gadonas’ claim petition was granted in January 2000 for injuries that he sustained at work on March 2, 1998 when he twisted his ankle and fell forward into a pothole injuring his low back. He returned to light-duty work March 16, 1998 and worked until May 15,1998. The WCJ who granted the claim petition awarded benefits of $561 per week from March 2 to [97]*97March 16 and from May 15, 1998 ongoing. Gadonas testified that he continues to suffer chronic low back pain; in 2003 Gadonas decided to apply for disability retirement. When he met with Employer’s benefits administrator, Joan Scone, he was informed that his disability pension would not be offset by his workers’ compensation. He began receiving a new disability pension of $738 per month effective May 1, 2003.

Almost five months later, on September 24, 2003, Employer filed its notice of workers’ compensation offset.1 On November 3, 2003, Gadonas filed a petition to review benefits offset. On November 24, 2003, he took out a loan for $4500 and deposited the funds into a self-directed IRA, representing the amount of pension benefits that he had received. It was his intention to “roll over” these payments into the IRA. The WCJ found Gadonas’ testimony credible, and he determined that Gadonas’ actions complied with 34 Pa.Code § 123.9(c), which provides: “Pension benefits which are rolled over into an IRA or other similarly restricted account may not offset workers’ compensation benefits, so long as the employe does not withdraw or otherwise utilize the pension benefits from the restricted account while simultaneously receiving workers’ compensation benefits from the liable employer.” The WCJ granted the petition to review benefit offset and ordered ongoing benefits of $561 per week without a pension offset. The WCJ denied, as well, Employer’s termination petition and Gadonas’ penalty petition relating to medical payments, but those matters are not involved on this appeal.

Employer appealed to the Board, which agreed with Employer that Gadonas did not establish that he rolled over his pension benefits into an IRA. Section 204(a) of the Workers’ Compensation Act (Act), Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S. § 71(a), provides in part: “[T]he benefits from a pension plan to the extent funded by the employer directly liable for the payment of compensation which are received by an employe shall also be credited against the amount of the award made under sections 108 and 306, except for benefits payable under section 306(c).” An IRA is defined in 34 Pa.Code § 123.2 as “[a]n individual retirement account as that term is utilized in 26 U.S.C.A. §§ 219 and 408(a).” The Board stated that pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 408(d)(3)(A)(i)-(ii), a rollover contribution must be made no later than the sixtieth day after receiving the payment, and Gadonas testified that he had spent the pension payments since May.

The Board first decided that the WCJ erred in determining that Gadonas met his burden to establish that the pension benefits he received during the pendency of the litigation or those that he would receive ongoing into the indefinite future were rolled over into an IRA. Because the WCJ [98]*98accepted Gadonas’ testimony only as to the single deposit that he made after borrowing the money, his evidence was insufficient to establish that he continued to make deposits during the pendency of the litigation. In regard to the $4500, the Board stated that because 34 Pa.Code § 123.2 cites to Sections 219 and 408(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (Internal Revenue Code) in defining an IRA and consistency in the law is of great benefit, the best approach is to apply settled interpretations from the Internal Revenue Code concerning whether an IRA deposit constitutes a rollover. The Board ordered that only pension payments received within sixty days of the date of the deposit could qualify as a rollover.2

II

Gadonas argues that the Board erred by holding that the full amount of the $4500 deposited into his IRA did not qualify as a rollover. He began receiving the pension benefits in June 2003, effective May 1, 2003, and he was not notified until September 23, 2003 that Employer was seeking to offset benefits already received. Gadonas testified that he consulted the Department of Labor and Industry’s website and learned that “if the moneys are deposited into an IRA, joint, singular or any other type of account similar to these, the money cannot be offset.” N.T. November 25, 2003, p. 29; Reproduced Record (R.R.) 78a. The WCJ credited Gadonas’ testimony that it was his intent to roll over pension benefits that he received to date into his IRA. Citing Lehigh County Vo-Tech School v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Wolfe), 539 Pa. 322, 652 A.2d 797 (1995), Gadonas submits that the Board usurped the WCJ’s authority to make credibility determinations when it reversed the WCJ’s order.

Second, Gadonas argues that the Board erred when it grafted new requirements onto 34 Pa.Code § 123.9(c). The Board decided that the “best approach” was to apply settled interpretations of the Internal Revenue Code to limit rollovers to amounts deposited into an IRA within sixty days of receipt. As quoted above, however, nothing in Section 123.9(c) establishes this requirement, and the Board exceeded its authority in imposing this new requirement.

Third, the Board erred by failing to take into account how Employer misled Gadonas with regard to its intention to take a pension offset against his workers’ compensation benefits. The WCJ credited Gadonas’ testimony that he was informed by the benefits administrator that his disability pension would have no effect on his workers’ compensation benefits. Employer waited several months before it notified Gadonas that it would take a pension offset back-dated to May 1, 2003. If a defendant fraudulently or deceptively lulls a claimant into a false sense of security regarding the filing of a claim, the defendant will be estopped from using the claimant’s inaction as a basis to deny the claim. Zafran v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Empire Kosher Poultry, Inc.), 713 A.2d 698 (Pa.Cmwlth.1998).

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Bluebook (online)
931 A.2d 95, 2007 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 415, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gadonas-v-workers-compensation-appeal-board-pacommwct-2007.