Marianne Henry Saylor, a partner in the Workers’ Compensation practice at Willig, Williams, & Davidson, is one of fewer than 200 lawyers in Philadelphia certified in workers’ compensation law by the Pennsylvania Bar Association Workers’ Compensation Law Section. She is deeply knowledgeable about the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act and has represented injured workers throughout eastern Pennsylvania. Marianne prides herself on being accessible to her clients.

 “If a client calls me, they will get me on the phone,” Marianne says. “They don’t have to go through a secretary or a paralegal. They can call me, discuss their issue with me, and get an immediate resolution of that issue.”

Marianne’s familiarity with the typical defense strategies of employers enables her to develop effective cases that protect the rights of injured workers. Marianne provides extensive counseling and vigorous representation to her clients and appears before Administrative Law Judges and the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board as well as the Pennsylvania Commonwealth and Supreme Courts. In addition to advising and representing clients, Marianne frequently presents workers’ compensation seminars to labor organizations and community groups, advising them of the rights and responsibilities of injured workers.

Some of those workers may be covered by Pennsylvania Act 534, with which Marianne is very familiar. Act 534 provides an additional layer of workers’ compensation protections for employees of certain state-run correctional and penal facilities and mental hospitals, and Marianne has helped many of those employees secure the benefits to which they’re entitled under the law.

Clients with Social Security disability cases also can rely on Marianne’s deep knowledge about what can be a complex undertaking. Disabled, blind, or aged people receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) may also be eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which typically is a higher benefit. Marianne can help guide qualified people through the application and determination process, which can take months to navigate successfully.

Together with her colleagues, Marianne offers a depth of knowledge and experience of workers’ compensation and Social Security disability issues that helps Willig, Williams & Davidson clients receive just and fair outcomes.

“I love being part of a team of attorneys who give every resource that we have to representing each of our clients to the best of our ability,” Marianne says.

In 2008, Marianne prevailed in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania against the City of Philadelphia in a case that forced the city to fairly compensate its injured workers. The City had been improperly counting 100 percent of an injured employee’s disability pension payments against the amount it was obliged to pay that employee under the Workers’ Compensation Act. 

Marianne successfully argued that the City of Philadelphia, which funded only a portion of the disability pension, had to prove the extent to which it funded the injured employee’s disability pension in order to commensurately offset that employee’s workers’ compensation payment. The injured worker was awarded back payments on almost three years of improperly withheld workers’ compensation payments, plus penalties, and the precedent established in the case continues to protect injured workers of the City of Philadelphia today.

Outside of the office, Marianne has served her community as President of the Lansdowne Borough Council in Delaware County, Pa., a body to which she was first elected as a council member in 2011. She also has served as a board member and secretary of the Southwest Community Development Corporation, a private nonprofit that provides assistance to residents and promotes economic development in the neighborhood.

Marianne received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennington College in Vermont and her law degree from City University of New York School of Law.