Florida: Officer’s Secondary Hypertension as Teen Bars Use of Presumption of Compensability

Florida’s special presumption of compensability [see § 112.18, Fla. Stat.], which favors first responders and other law enforcement employees who pass pre-employment physical examinations and then subsequently suffer from cardiac conditions, could not be used by an officer who had developed “secondary hypertension” during his teen years because he had to take anti-rejection medications for 15 years after a liver transplant. Although no hypertension was found years later, when he took his pre-employment exam, he did indicate on a pre-employment questionnaire that he had earlier suffered from the condition. His physician said the secondary hypertension had completely resolved prior to his employment since he had stopped the medication, but the appellate court agreed that the clear and plain wording of the statute meant the presumption of compensability was not available. The Legislature could have used limiting language in the statute and had chosen not to do so.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Holcombe v. City of Naples, 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS 13037 (1st DCA, Sept. 15, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 52.07.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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