Pennsylvania: Independent Contractor Agreement Signed After Injury Does Not Alter Worker’s Status as Employee

A Pennsylvania painter who signed an agreement indicating that he was an independent contractor after he was discharged from a hospital following work-related injuries was an employee and not an independent contractor, held a state appellate court. As such, he was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for the injuries he had sustained. The purported employer offered evidence that when the painter answered an advertisement offering work, the painter indicated he had 20 years experience, that the painter accompanied the purported employer to a job for three days, supplying some, but not all of his painting equipment. The two agreed to payment of $100 per day. The employer indicated he forgot to get the painter to sign the independent contractor agreement at their initial meeting, but that the painter signed and dated the agreement when they met after the latter was released from the hospital. The court held that signing the agreement did not change the painter’s employment status since it did not pre-date the injury.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Staron v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (Farrier), 2015 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 325 (July 17, 2015) [2015 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 325 (July 17, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 63.01 [63.01]

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

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