Pennsylvania Workers Compensation Glossary of Terms
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Damages. Money payment recovered in the courts for an injury or loss caused by an unlawful act or omission or negligence of another.
Death benefits. Where death results from a work-related injury within 300 weeks from the date of the injury, weekly workers compensation benefits and burial expenses are provided to certain dependents, including a surviving spouse, children under 18, and adult dependent children. If the worker is not survived by a spouse or dependent children, benefits may be claimed by parents, brothers, and sisters under certain conditions.
Decedent. A deceased person.
Defendant. In a workers compensation case, the defendant is the employer, the insurance carrier, and, in certain cases, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Dependency. In workers compensation cases, some claimants may need to prove dependency before collecting death benefits. Dependency involves reliance on the decedent in order to meet living expenses.
Department of Labor and Industry (Pennsylvania). This Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry supervises the administration of the Pennsylvania Workers Compensation Act. The Department is also given extensive rule- and regulation-making powers.
Deposition. Testimony of a witness taken under oath, but not in a courtroom. May be used to discover evidence prior to trial or to preserve testimony for use in court at a later time.
Direct examination. The questioning of a witness by the direct examiner or the party that called the witness.
Disability. In the legal sense, lack of legal capacity to perform some act. Used in a physical sense in connection with a workers compensation case, it is a composite of (a) actual incapacity to perform employment tasks and the wage loss resulting there from and (b) physical bodily impairment which may or may not be incapacitating. For workers compensation purposes, it refers to the degree that a work-related injury affects an injured worker's earning power. See total disability and partial disability.
Disfigurement. A technical term in workers compensation cases for a serious and permanent scar to the head, neck, or face.
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