Florida: Dental Assistant’s Retaliatory Discharge Action May Move Forward

A Florida trial court erred when it dismissed a former employee’s complaint against her former employer for failing to state a cause of action in her retaliatory discharge civil action [see § 440.205, Fla. Stat.], where she alleged that from the time she stopped working as a dental assistant due to her work-related injury until the employer fired her, the employer engaged in actions that demonstrated a negative attitude toward her workers’ compensation claim. The court stressed that in order to recover, a plaintiff had to show a causal relationship between her protected activity—here her action in seeking workers’ compensation benefits—and the adverse employment action. Here she alleged that she was able to return to work after her recovery period and that the employer allowed her only one shift per week, in spite of the fact that it had an open position. The plaintiff had stated a legally sufficient violation of § 440.205 and the complaint should not have been dismissed.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis%20Workers’%20Compensation%20eNewsletter," target="_blank">LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletterLexisNexis%20Workers’%20Compensation%20eNewsletter," target="_blank">, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

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See Atha v. Allen P. Van Overbeke, D.M.D., P.A., 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 3221 (Mar. 10, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 104.07.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law