Florida: Expert Medical Advisor’s Admissible, But Not Presumed Correct on Issues Not Directly Addressed by the Parties

Where a judge of compensation claims (JCC) appointed an expert medical advisor to help resolve disagreements among the claimant’s and insurer’s physicians, the JCC erred when he excluded the EMA’s opinions regarding apportionment on the grounds that neither party had requested that an apportionment question be posed to the EMA. The appellate court acknowledged that the process used in this case—whereby the JCC posed specific questions to the EMA—was one that had developed over time. The Court noted as well that neither the plain language of § 440.13(9)(c) nor the rules subsequently promulgated offered guidance regarding the question of how broadly the presumption of correctness applied to the EMA’s opinion. The Court added, however, that ignoring a medical opinion that was relevant to an issue before the JCC was not in keeping with explicitly stated legislative intent. While here, the EMA’s opinion regarding apportionment was not presumed correct, it should have been admissible in the case.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc. v. Beekman, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 3407 (1st DCA Mar. 4, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 94.02.

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