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IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

PIETRANGE CICCHIELLO, Petitioner v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEAL BOARD (FRANK L. MARKEL CORPORATION), Respondent

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No. 2024 C.D. 1999 Submitted: December 3, 1999

BEFORE: HONORABLE JOSEPH T. DOYLE, President Judge HONORABLE JAMES R. KELLEY, Judge HONORABLE EMIL E. NARICK, Senior Judge

OPINION BY PRESIDENT JUDGE DOYLE

FILED: October 25, 2000

Pietrange Cicchiello (Claimant) petitions this Court for review of an order of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board (Board) affirming the decision of a Workers' Compensation Judge (WCJ) dismissing Claimant's Reinstatement Petition as being time barred. The issue before us is whether, in determining if Claimant's reinstatement petition was timely filed, we calculate the five-hundred week time bar as beginning on the date benefits were converted from total disability to partial disability or the date that benefits were suspended because work was made available to Claimant, and, if we determine the former, whether Claimant was deprived of the opportunity to have his benefits reinstated where the

WCJ circulated his determination after the five-hundred week period had expired. Based on the following rationale, we affirm.

On August 18, 1983, while employed by L. Frank Markel Corporation (Employer), Claimant suffered a work-related strain to his left arm and received total disability benefits pursuant to a notice of compensation payable. Claimant returned to work on December 8, 1983, and signed a final receipt. Subsequently, Claimant filed a petition to set aside the final receipt and a petition for reinstatement of his total disability benefits in March 1984 and March 1985, respectively. In 1988, a WCJ1 granted the petitions and reinstated Claimant's total disability benefits as of September 20, 1984, the date when he stopped working. Employer was given a credit for wages paid from July 27 to August 7, 1986, encompassing the period in which Claimant had, again, briefly returned to work.

Employer appealed the WCJ's decision and, in November 1991, additionally filed a petition for modification, alleging that Claimant could return to suitable work that was made available to him on August 22, 1991. Employer later

amended the petition to allege that suitable work was available as of May 23, 1991.

In June 1992, the Board affirmed the WCJ's decision reinstating Claimant's total disability benefits, but remanded for the WCJ's consideration of the evidence presented by Employer regarding the availability of suitable work, which the WCJ
Prior to the 1993 amendments to the Workers' Compensation Act (Act), Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, as amended, 77 P.S.

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