Greetings, my Tip of the Week last week touched on the 120-day rule and I got some good follow up questions, and requests for more detail about the 14 days, 120 days and Major Contributing Cause. So I will attempt to lay it out without getting too far down any rabbit holes: (The FL WC […]
Greetings, I just presented a Florida CEU this morning and thought this would be a good refresher for everyone. Not responding to a PFB is the same as denying the requested benefits EXCEPT in two key circumstances: The Statute of Limitation has expired. In this case you must respond to the PFB and state the […]
Greetings, The news these days seems filled with doom and gloom about inflation leading to a looming recession. The question then is what will be the impact on WC claims. Looking back at the last major recession, which was officially from December 2007 to June 2009, does give us some idea what the future may […]
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 […]