Articles Posted in Workers' Compensation

Florida’s experience with crafting workers’ compensation legislation is a case study in the danger of accepting without challenge the statements of insurance industry lobbyists. One after the other during Florida’s last legislative session (March – May, 2017), insurance industry lobbyists stood before committees of elected officials and made baseless comments for the simple purpose of…

Wikipedia defines a functional capacity evaluation (FCE) as “a set of tests, practices and observations that are combined to determine the ability of the evaluated person to function in a variety of circumstances, most often employment, in an objective manner. Physicians change diagnoses based on FCEs.” I, for one, consider FCEs junk science. At the…

Florida’s workers’ compensation statute of limitations is outlined in section 440.19, Florida Statues (2017). The statute is particular with regard to the requirements workers’ compensation insurance carriers must satisfy to prevail on the SOL defense. This blog points out an approach not addressed in the statute which is used by carriers to bar claims through…

Following the Florida Supreme Court’s April, 2016 decision in Castellanos v. Next Door Company, Florida’s workers’ compensation insurance industry quickly mobilized in an effort to obtain approval of a rate increase from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. It claimed that a substantial premium rate hike was needed to handle the expected increase in claim…

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” The meaning of the proverb is that, if necessary, blunt force will be used to compel compliance with reasonable behavior. It works. In Castellanos v. Next Door Company, the Florida Supreme Court gave injured workers a big stick. It is Section 440.34(3)…

Shame on the Miami Herald! On September 30, 2016 (print) and October 4, 2016 (online), the Miami Herald published an editorial, written by Mark Wilson, president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, titled Workers’ comp rate hike will hurt Florida businesses. Mr. Wilson contends that two recent Florida Supreme Court decisions will cause…

Florida’s workers’ compensation statute of limitations, Section 440.19 Florida Statutes, is not the only time bar to bringing a workers’ compensation claim. Section 440.185(1) time bars a claim not reported to the employer “within 30 days after the date of or initial manifestation of the injury.” The statute contains four exceptions: (a) The employer or the…

ISSUE: Whether section 440.34 Florida Statutes, recently modified by the Florida Supreme Court in Castellanos v. Next Door Company, et al. (Fla., 2016), should be amended to eliminate insurance carrier-paid reasonable attorney’s fees. DISCUSSION: In 2009, the Florida Legislature barred judges of workers’ compensation claims (JCC) from awarding reasonable carrier-paid hourly fees to the lawyers…

On April 28, 2016, the Florida Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the mandatory fee schedule in section 440.34, Florida Statutes (2009), which eliminated the requirement of a reasonable attorney’s fee to a successful claimant. The ruling, in Castellanos v. Next Door Company, et al., sent shock waves through the workers’ compensation community. Many within the business…

On April 28, 2016, the Florida Supreme Court, in Castellanos v. Next Door Company, righted a wrong thirteen years in the making. The court decided that the due process edicts embodied in the Federal and Florida constitutions mandate that judges who decide workers’ compensation cases be allowed to award reasonable attorney’s fees to claimants attorneys.…