Zerby v. Workers Compensation Appeal Board

In Hannaberry HVAC v. Workers Compensation Appeal Bd. (Snyder, Jr.), 834 A.2d 524 (Pa. 2003), this Court recently considered whether, under Section 309(d) of the Workers Compensation Act, see 77 P.S. § 582(d), the General Assembly intended that a seriously and permanently injured full-time worker, whose three months of full-time employment was immediately preceded by part-time after-school employment, should be penalized by having the periods of his part-time scholastic employment included in the calculation of his average weekly wage ("AWW"). The Hannaberry Court concluded that this Section of the Act was intended to ensure an accurate calculation of an injured workers average wages, and thus, we held that the diminished wages reflected by earnings in earlier periods when the claimant was a part-time student worker could not be included to dilute the appropriate benefit amount.