Recovery Is Not Reduced by the Amount of Workers' Compensation Benefits

Is an Injured Employee's Recovery Reduced by the Amount of Worker's Compensation Benefit and Does Its Carrier have the Right of Subrogation for any Benefits Paid in Connection with the Action ? In Warner v. Continental/CNA Insurance Companies, 455 Pa. Super. 295, 688 A.2d 177 (Pa. Super. 1996), this court held that "a plaintiff's recovery is not reduced by the amount of workers' compensation benefits, and the workers' compensation carrier has the right of subrogation for any benefits paid in connection with the action." 688 A.2d at 182. The Court explained: Allowing the injured employee to recover underinsured or uninsured motorist benefits from his or her employer's motor vehicle insurer will create a fund against which the employer's workers' compensation carrier can exert its subrogation lien. Where our legislature, aware of the prior appellate court precedent which specifically permitted the recovery of uninsured and underinsured motorist benefits from an employer's motor vehicle insurer, did not expressly provide in the recent amendments to the Acts that recovery of optional uninsured/underinsured motorists benefits under a policy of insurance issued to the claimant's employer was prohibited, we cannot conclude that the express terms of section 303 of the Workers' Compensation Act bar recovery of uninsured/underinsured benefits otherwise available to an injured employee. Id. at 184.