The legal principle of respondent superior makes employers liable in civil damages for the negligence of their employees. The typical large-scale construction project is manned by workers employed by many different companies. However, the theories of vertical and horizontal immunity contained in Florida Statute Sections 440.10(1)(b)&(e) exempt construction site employers from respondent superior liability for worker on worker…
Over the years, but especially since 1998, it has gotten progressively more difficult for workers injured on the job to be fairly compensated under Florida’s workers’ compensation system. Republican governors (Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, Rick Scott) backed by Republican-dominated legislatures have made every effort to limit and eliminate workers’ rights. Occasionally, the First…
While a recent Florida Supreme Court decision has leveled the playing field for injured workers in workers’ compensation cases — read Jeffrey P. Gale, P.A. // Another Jeb Bush Law Bites the Dust — a better remedy can sometimes be achieved through the civil justice system under negligence law principles. Florida Statute 440.11 immunizes most…
On April 28, 2016, the Florida Supreme Court announced its decision in Marvin Castellanos v. Next Door Company, et al. The case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of Florida Statute 440.34, the law that prescribes the payment of fees to attorneys who represent injured workers. In 2009, Marvin Castellanos, then forty-six years old,…
The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly. It can take years for personal injury and workers’ compensation cases to reach final resolution. In the interim, accident victims often experience extreme financial pressure. The pressure can force victims to compromise their case. An industry has developed to address the problem. Lawsuit funding companies loan money to victims with the…
My first workers’ compensation trial involved having to prove that a herniated cervical spine intervertebral disc was work related. Our elderly female client had assembled mattresses in a warehouse for fifteen years. Once the assembly was complete, she was responsible for stacking them one on top of the other until she could reach no higher. The mattresses ranged…
The day after Jeb Bush suspended his run for the Republican presidential nomination, I read a quote in the Miami Herald from a South Carolina voter expressing dismay because she believed Bush was a good man who cared about disabled people. My immediate thought was, this woman does not know Jeb Bush … or at…
Can a worker injured outside the state of Florida be eligible for Florida workers’ compensation benefits? The answer lies in § 440.09(1)(d), Fla. Stat.: If an accident happens while the employee is employed elsewhere than in this state, which would entitle the employee or his or her dependents to compensation if it…
An employee injured or killed in the course of his or her employment by the negligence or wrongful act of a third-party tortfeasor may receive workers’ compensation benefits and pursue a remedy by action at law against such third-party tortfeasor. (Where the employee has been killed, the third-party action will be handled through the…
Florida’s workers’ compensation system is stacked against injured workers in every way imaginable. It more closely resembles what would be expected in Vladamir Putin’s Russia. An especially egregious arrangement is the one which allows employers and their workers’ compensation insurance carriers to hand-select the injured worker’s treating doctors. See Section 440.13(2) Florida…