The 52-week filing requirement related to first responder PTSD claims in § 112.1815(5)(d), Fla. Stat., runs from the date of the qualifying event specified in the statute and not from the date the first responder manifests PTSD symptoms, held a Florida appellate...
While the provision of electricity to its Florida customers required that a Florida utility company maintain its equipment, a company with whom the utility contracted for maintenance work did not do so on the basis of any subletting of the utility's "contract...
A JCC's decision finding that a workers' compensation claimant had not knowingly misrepresented her post-injury earnings was affirmed by a state appellate court in spite of considerable evidence that contrary. The claimant sustained a work-related back...
A JCC's decision to deny claimant's request for temporary disability benefits on the basis that the claimant had received full pay during the period from the claimant's bank of accumulated sick time was error, held a Florida appellate court. The JCC...
Construing Florida's one-time change of physician statute, § 440.13(2)(f), a state appellate court held, in a divided decision, that it is insufficient for an employer or carrier to provide the worker with the name of a new physician within the five-day...
A Florida appellate court held a municipality had successfully rebutted the presumption of compensability [see § 112.18(1)(a), Fla. Stat.] regarding a correction officer's claim of cardiac disease (atrial fibrillation), where the evidence suggested that...
The 30-day “grace” period found in § 440.34(3)(b), Fla. Stat., which allows an employer/carrier to avoid the imposition of attorney fees if the the employer/carrier either accepts the claim or provides the requested benefits within 30 days of its...
Distinguishing several earlier Florida decisions, in which an employer had been barred from asserting immunity from tort liability on exclusive remedy grounds after it had denied the employee’s workers’ compensation claim on grounds that the injury...
Where an injured employee was fired less than two weeks after sustaining an injury and before he had actually filed a workers’ compensation claim, he could nevertheless pursue a retaliatory discharge action, held a Florida appellate court. The court noted...
Injuries sustained by a Florida employee during an employer-sponsored bowling event arose out of and in the course of the employee’s employment since the event was not a “recreational activity” as defined in § 440.092(2), held a divided state...
A Florida appellate court held that a Judge of Compensation Claims erred in awarding workers’ compensation benefits to a claimant for an alleged toxic exposure claim in the form of fungal meningitis in as much as the statutes in question—§ 440...
Payment of cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) by the Division of Workers’ Compensation are the sort of “compensation” outlined in § 440.15(1)(f), held the Supreme Court of Florida. Accordingly, where an employer inexplicably stopped paying...
Where a Florida expert medical advisor (EMA) wavered slightly in answering a hypothetical question offered to the doctor on cross-examination, but clearly indicated in the EMA’s report that the injured worker had reached MMI, it was error for the Judge of...
Affirming a decision by a state Judge of Compensation Claims, a Florida appellate court has agreed that an undocumented worker who sustained injuries in a work-related accident can be denied benefits on the basis that he used someone else’s Social Security...
An independent medical examiner (IME) offered by the employer to opine on whether there was a sufficient causal connection between an employee’s lung condition and his employment need not be a board-certified pulmonologist, held a Florida appellate court...