Florida: Physicians Need Not “Interrogate” Claimants Regarding Allegedly False Statements

Florida’s workers’ compensation fraud statute, § 440.105(4), Fla. Stat., does not require a physician to “interrogate” the claimant regarding what may have been false or misleading statements provided by the claimant to the physician, even when the physician has contradictory information from another source, held a state appellate court. Accordingly, the claimant cannot nullify his or her misleading statements by showing the physician did not rely upon them in coming to the physician’s medical opinion. Nor must a misrepresentation by a claimant be deemed material in order to justify the loss of workers’ compensation benefits. The issue is whether the false or misleading statement was offered to secure benefits.

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 Cal-Maine Foods v. Howard, 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 10681 (1st DCA, July 26, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 39.02.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see