Innocent until proven guilty is the basis of a unanimous Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruling issued Wednesday that affirmed a 2019 court order that Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Inc. recalculate and reinstate workers compensation benefits to an injured worker who was imprisoned awaiting trial.

Carl Sadler suffered a back sprain and amputation of his pinky finger in 2012 while working as a maintenance mechanic at the Philadelphia-based subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Co. and was incarcerated in 2013 for crimes not revealed in court documents Carl Sadler v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board, filed in the state Supreme Court’s Eastern Division in Philadelphia.

In 2015, Coca-Cola filed for a suspension of benefits “claiming that (his) benefits should be suspended because he spent 525 days in jail prior to his conviction and because he was credited with having served that time upon his conviction on January 22, 2015, (he) should not be unjustly enriched and his benefits should be adjusted accordingly,” documents state.

In two appeals, Mr. Sadler claimed that state law provides that pretrial incarceration — incarceration because he could not afford bail — does not meet the “incarceration after conviction” stipulation allowing comp benefits to be withheld, according to documents. A workers compensation judge and the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board both ruled in favor of Philadelphia Coca-Cola.

On appeal in 2019, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg reversed, agreeing with Mr. Sadler that “under the plain language of (state law), incarceration that occurs before a conviction, due to the inability to meet bail, is not a ‘period during which the employee is incarcerated after a conviction,’ and such an interpretation would be inconsistent with the fundamental principles underlying the (Workers’ Compensation) Act and its purpose.”

In the latest appeal, Coca-Cola argued that Commonwealth Court’s decision, under the Pennsylvania and federal constitutions, “results in an unequal application of the law” arguing “that the Commonwealth Court’s interpretation, if correct, impermissibly creates two classes of claimants who have been convicted of crimes: those who continue to receive benefits and those who do not.”

The state’s highest court, in ruling that equal protection laws do not apply, wrote that “[b]ecause an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, pretrial incarceration is entirely irrelevant to the issue of guilt,” as would apply in the case of a person incarcerated following conviction, and “thus pretrial incarceration is not equivalent to voluntarily removing oneself from the workforce.”