Greetings, A client asked me to do some research on WC stats in Florida, and thought I’d share some interesting bits. According to the FLDFS (Fla Dept of Financial Services) website, there were 68,916 lost time cases in Florida in 2021. That includes all lost time, but also death claims, settlements, impairment benefits, basically everything […]
Greetings, I often get questions about what counts as money/earnings to offset any WC payments that are due. Here are a few of the more common ones: PTO/vacation/sick time- If a claimant received PTO pay from the Employer, it is generally not earnings to reduce your WC payments. There is a wide array of different […]
Greetings, The 1st DCA issued a ruling last week regarding the award of claimant attorney’s fees when no actual benefits are awarded at the time of the trial, but possibly due later. The case is attached, Guerrea v. Becton Dickinson & Co. At the trial, the claimant’s was awarded an increase in his AWW, but […]
Greetings, As you may have heard, the Division of Admin Hearings (DOAH) just confirmed some long-rumored closures of 4 physical Judge of Compensation offices, Lakeland, Sebastian/Melbourne, Gainesville and Port. St. Lucie venues. The Judge in Lakeland, Judge Arthur will be headquartered in Tampa and the Judge in Gainesville, Judge Stanton, will be headquartered in Jacksonville. […]
Greetings, last week the 1st DCA issued a decision regarding the Going and Coming rule (440.092(2)) in the Aquino v. American Airlines case. In this case, the claimant had clocked out, and walked through the airport terminal towards the parking lot shuttle bus stop to take the shuttle to the airport-employee parking lot. He injured […]
Greetings, last week the 1 DCA issued a very important decision regarding the meaning of “Arising out of” means and its impact on idiopathic claims. To this day, the number one question I seem to get is is it compensable if a claimant is just walking at work and falls (in fact we have a […]
Greetings, There are some amendments to the “Q-Rules”, the WC Rules of Procedure that go into effect on Monday, 2/14/22 (so consider this my little gift to you). Most of the changes are minor and are more on our end as defense attorneys, but three that should be noted for adjusters and employers: 1) Before […]
Greetings, There is quite a bit of confusion as to what timeframe an adjuster has to respond to a request for benefits underFlorida law. And the answer is..it depends how they ask and who is asking. Good Faith Letter: There is no requirement an adjuster responds to these (UNLESS it contains a request for a […]
Greetings, For claimant’s with a date of accident between 1/1/1994 and 9/30/2003, there was a cap on the window where temporary benefits were available of 401 weeks. Under 440.15(3)(c) they had to use their 104 weeks (back then) of TTD or TPD within 401 weeks (7 years and 8 months ish) of the date of […]
Greetings, As we start off the new year, we typically see new claims that occurred at Employer holiday events. Compensable? It depends. (This same analysis applies to all events throughout the year, not just holiday parties. Bah Humbug!) For an injury to be compensable from a recreational/social activity, two things must be true about the […]