State liquor store manager Gregory Kochanowicz never considered coming face-to-face with a masked, gun-wielding robber to be all in a day's work.
Nor did he think that being duct-taped to a chair and threatened if he tried to escape was part of his “normal working conditions.”
But that's what the state Liquor Control Board contended when arguing that Kochanowicz, 60, should not be granted workers' compensation benefits to deal with the emotional fallout from an April 2008 robbery just before closing time in his store in Morrisville, Bucks County.
LCB attorneys said they didn't dispute Kochanowicz's claim that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder but said his claim should be denied because the robbery was not abnormal and should be expected by employees, citing nearly 100 robberies of liquor stores between 2002 and 2008 in the Philadelphia area.
But last week, a Commonwealth Court judge disagreed, ruling that Kochanowicz — who says he's haunted by images of the robbery that have disrupted his sleep, caused anxiety and affected his family relationships — should be awarded the benefits.
Robert Baker, an attorney with The Chartwell Law Offices in Harrisburg who represented the LCB in the case, did not return calls and emails seeking comment. LCB spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman said she could not comment on the case because her agency doesn't deal directly with workers' compensation issues but instead contracts with an insurance company, which hires its own legal counsel.
The LCB has 60 days to appeal to the Supreme Court, which would then decide whether to hear the case.
Kochanowicz's attorney said the implications of the victory extend well beyond his client.
“It's very important for my client, who went through an extraordinary situation ... (but also) important as a legal precedent,” said attorney Al Carlson III.
The court ruling was made in a six-year legal battle in which state workers' compensation Judge Patricia Bachman initially granted Kochanowicz $727.38 per week plus medical benefits for the “indeterminate future,” stating that “robbery at gunpoint to the back of the head is neither a normal societal occurrence nor a normal working condition.”
But the LCB filed several appeals of her ruling at various agency and court levels, stalling issuance of Kochanowicz's benefits. All along, attorneys said Kochanowicz failed to pass the legal litmus test for receiving benefits for a mental injury — that the incident occurred in abnormal working conditions.
Through his attorney, Kochanowicz declined to be interviewed.
Sam Cordes, a Downtown employment attorney not affiliated with the case, said the decision may prevent employers from arguing — as the LCB did — that because robberies occur generally, every worker should expect to handle one, he said.
“I think it's going to preclude these places from arguing that the nature of the place means once you accept the job, you accept that someone's going to put a gun to your head,” Cordes said.
The LCB has hired security guards for dozens of stores in recent years. The board authorized spending more than $4.2 million in December to hire guards at 42 of its roughly 600 retail stores through 2017, including 32 in the Philadelphia region.
In November, the board voted to pay more than $856,000 in overtime for Philadelphia police officers to patrol stores throughout the city in four marked police vehicles.
Kari Andren is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 724-850-2856 or kandren@tribweb.com.
