In the case of Robert Dietz (deceased) by Judith Dietz v. WCAB (Lower Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority), No. 2051 C.D. 2014, 2015 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 532, the Commonwealth Court addressed the burden of proof in a fatal claim heart attack case. The claimant suffered a fatal heart attack while working on the job. The testimony before the WCJ established that the claimant worked a physically strenuous job in field maintenance where he might have to use a jack hammer to dig up a road or cut tree roots to repair water main breaks. There was no evidence of the actual job duties being performed by the claimant at the time of the his heart attack. The expert medical testimony by the claimant established that the decedent’s strenuous job and hours of physical labor led to the heart attack. The employer presented medical expert testimony that the death of the decedent was not caused by his job duties because he had performed the same job for 20 years, and there was no evidence that he was doing anything that day which would cause additional stress on his heart. The employer’s medical expert also relied on the decedent’s prior history for heart problems, elevated cholesterol, heavy smoking, and weight as the combining risk factors for the cause of the heart attack. The WCJ denied the Fatal Claim Petition, finding that the heart attack was not causally related to the decedent’s work, mainly relying upon the non work-related risk factors that it was not unusual for the decedent to work extra hours and there was no increased demand on the decedent’s heart on the day of his death. The claimant appealed and the Board vacated and remanded. The Board held that the WCJ applied the wrong standard when he required the claimant to prove the decedent’s work activities were more strenuous than normal. Under the correct standard, the claimant need only prove a connection between employment and death. On remand, the WCJ granted the Fatal Claim Petition finding that the long workday caused the fatal heart attack. The employer appealed and the Board reversed, finding that there was no evidence as to the specific work activities that day which led to the heart attack. The Commonwealth Court then reversed the Board and held that it is not necessary to prove and identify the precise work details that caused a death due to a heart attack, and that circumstantial evidence that proves exertion from regular work activities over the course of a 14-hour workday was sufficient.

What It Means to You

The Commonwealth Court solely relied upon the fact that the decedent had a physically exertive job and a long workday to support his holding. This case relies on the decedent’s wife’s testimony concerning his general job duties as the basis for the holding, which clearly was circumstantial evidence. The Commonwealth Court ignored that there was no specific evidence of what the decedent was doing at the time of his heart attack and assumed that the overall physical exertion from the workday caused the fatal heart attack. One should question if the holding would have been the same if the employer presented evidence to establish the decedent’s physical work activity on the day of his death. Alternatively, would case law support a claim for a heart attack of an office worker or another job position which does not include a tremendous amount of physical exertion as part of its daily job duty? This holding is further proof that employers and insurers fight an uphill battle when litigating fatal claim petitions. Sympathy for the widow or widower might be an underlying factor in the court’s lenient view towards the burden of proof on causation in a Fatal Claim Petition.