Dual Rulings Draw Viability of 'Seasonal Employee' Classification Into Question

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania last week issued two decisions that illustrate how difficult it can be for an employer to establish that a worker was a seasonal employee. The Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act provides a specific formula for calculating a worker's average weekly wage when the worker is injured while engaged in an "exclusively seasonal" occupation, but the act doesn't provide a definition for the term. According to the Commonwealth Court's decision in Toigo Orchards v. WCAB (Gaffney), a tractor driver who was hired for a single apple harve...