Florida employers with four or more employees must maintain workers’ compensation insurance or a statutorily prescribed alternative. §440.055 Florida Statutes (2015). An employer who fails to maintain the coverage may nevertheless be sued by an injured employee for workers’ compensation benefits or, in the alternative, the employee may proceed at common law to recover damages for injury…
Florida’s workers’ compensation system was created, in 1935, with the goal of providing benefits to injured workers without the delay of having to prove the accident was caused by the employer’s negligence. In exchange for this no-fault system, employers were granted immunity from being liable for negligence. The system, however, did not afford absolute immunity. There…
I have blogged often to express my displeasure and dismay with the slow and sometimes immediate erosion of benefits available to injured workers under Florida’s workers’ compensation system. This blog highlights one example. The Florida Legislature enacted the state’s first “Workman’s” Compensation Act in 1935. While I have not done a case study of…
Florida has five district courts of appeal. These courts are charged with reviewing rulings and outcomes arising in lower tribunals. Above these courts sits the Florida Supreme Court. This court reviews decisions issued by the five lower courts of appeal. Cases reach the Florida Supreme Court in one or more of the following ways: (1)…
The first sentence of §440.34(1) Florida Statutes advises that every attorney’s fee received by a Florida workers’ compensation claimant’s attorney must be approved by a judge of compensation claims (JCC). This is the case whether the fee is paid by the claimant, an employer, or a workers’ compensation insurance company. A violation of…
Maximizing the client’s net recovery should be a primary focus in every case. Court costs, litigation and medical expenses, and insurance liens are elements often charged against the gross recovery. One of the insurance liens is a creature of Florida Statute 440.39(2). This lien comes into play when a person…
Some of Florida’s most severely injured workers may qualify for Permanent Total Disability (PTD) benefits under Section 440.15(1) Florida Statutes. In the absence of a catastrophic injury such as a spinal cord injury involving severe paralysis, amputation of an arm, a hand, a foot, or a leg, severe brain or…
Our firm has been hired by a woman who recently sustained a serious leg injury while walking back to her car from a company sponsored holiday party. The employer has refused to provide workers’ compensation benefits, claiming that the accident did not happen in the course and scope of employment.…
Injured workers who qualify for workers’ compensation permanent total disability benefits (PTD) under Florida Statue 440.15(1), receive 66-2/3% of their average weekly wage (AWW) payable biweekly. Such injured workers may also qualify for Social Security Disability (SSD) monetary benefits payable monthly. The sum of the two benefits may exceed 100%…
A Judge of Compensation Claims (JCC) recently denied our firm a stipulated carrier-paid attorney’s fee under the so-called medical-only section of Florida Statute 440.34. The judge rejected the stipulation because a claim for Permanent Total Disability (440.15(1)) was pending when we filed a claim for psychiatric care. The judge misread…