Pennsylvania Code
Title 34 - LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Part VIII - Bureau of Workers' Compensation
Chapter 129 - WORKERS' COMPENSATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
Subchapter G - HEARINGS
Section 129.1303 - Hearing process
Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 38, September 21, 2024
(a) The Director will assign requests for hearings to an impartial hearing officer who will schedule a de novo hearing. The hearing officer will provide notice to parties of the hearing date, time and place.
(b) The hearing will be conducted in a manner to provide the parties with an opportunity to be heard. The hearing officer will not be bound by strict rules of evidence.
(c) Testimony will be recorded and a full record kept of the proceeding.
(d) Following the close of the record, the hearing officer will issue a written final decision and order.
(e) Any party to the hearing aggrieved by a decision rendered under subsection (d) may, within 30 days, appeal the decision to the Commonwealth Court. The hearing officer's determination will include a notification to the parties of their appeal rights.
(f) Subsections (a)-(e) supplement 1 Pa. Code Part II (relating to the General Rules of Administrative Practice and Procedure).
(g) If, after all appeals have been exhausted, the group self-insurance fund or individual self-insured employer is subject to a final determination that its accident and illness prevention program is inadequate, the group self-insurance fund or individual self-insured employer's certificate to self-insure its obligations under the act shall be void. The group self-insurance fund or individual self-insured employer's failure to properly insure its obligations under the act, through an insurer licensed to provide that coverage in this Commonwealth, within 15 days of the final determination may result in criminal liability under section 305 of the act (77 P. S. § 501).
(h) If, after all appeals have been exhausted, the insurer is subject to a final determination that its accident and illness prevention program is inadequate, the Bureau will notify the Commissioner that the insurer has failed to comply with section 1001(a) of the act (77 P. S. § 1038.1(a)). In that notification, the Bureau may recommend that the insurer's license to write that insurance in this Commonwealth be revoked.
