Florida Injury Attorney Blawg

Some of our social media postings: ******** Trump and the Vietnam War Only the most pickle-brained Trumpis believe that bone spurs kept Trump out of the Vietnam War through 5 deferments. I’m certain that it was cowardice, a sense of entitlement, and a lack of patriotism. Almost from the beginning, it was apparent that America…

The following are some of our posts to social media: Parkland Town Hall At the Parkland town hall, Rubio says that the NRA gives him money because it supports his agenda rather than the NRA giving him money to support its agenda. Either way, this means that Rubio supports the NRA agenda. Oy vey! He…

It is not uncommon for minor children to be living with only one of their parents or neither. Since minors do not have the capacity to make various legal decisions, the question often arises as to who, in the above scenarios, does have that authority. Custody law can be contentious and complicated. While it is…

The following editorial was published on January 16, 2018, in the Tampa Bay Times newspaper. It is fair and balanced. ***************************** Editorial: Balancing the playing field for workers’ compensation For the longest time, injured workers in Florida were basically at the mercy of the whims of employers to treat them fairly. A 2003 law aimed…

Section 440.15(4)(e) of the Florida Statutes provides as follows: “If the employee is terminated from postinjury employment based on the employee’s misconduct, temporary partial disability benefits are not payable as provided for in this section.” Simple enough, right? Not necessarily. For starters, 440.15(4)(e) is qualified by section 440.02(18), which provides in pertinent part as follows:…

Workers’ compensation claimants have the burden of showing that the workplace accident is the major contributing cause of an injury. Section 440.09(1), Florida Statutes (2017). Major contributing cause, or MCC, means the cause which is more than 50 percent responsible for the injury as compared to all other causes combined for which treatment or benefits…

Florida law grants workers’ compensation insurance companies the exclusive authority to control the selection of the injured worker’s treating medical providers. Section 440.13(2), Florida Statutes (2017). This leads to carriers repeatedly selecting providers with a track record of siding with them. Thankfully, the authority is not unbridled. One of the main restrictions concerns the proximity…

Various Florida statutes require court approval of wrongful death settlements and settlements involving minors (if the amounts received in the aggregate exceed $15,000; See Section 744.301(2), Florida Statutes (2017)). Does this mean that settlements in these situations cannot be negotiated to resolution by the parties without first obtaining court approval? The answer is that the…

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…

Making a first party insurance claim is not always the only or even the best option available to a person or corporation whose property has been damaged by wind or rain. (A first party claim is made by a policy holder to his or her own insurance company. These claims are contractual; meaning that they…