Greetings,  DOAH (Div of Administrative Hearings), the entity that manages the Florida WC litigation system has just published their annual report which covers July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.  As always, it’s a great collection of trends and facts about the overall state of WC litigation in Florida.

The link to the report is below but a warning its over 300 pages so don’t print it unless you despise forests.

Overall, the amount of new litigated WC claims in Florida was up nearly 4% to 30,864.   That’s a return to close to the pre-pandemic levels (31,224 in 2019-20).

The number of Petitions for Benefits filed is also a good measure of the amount of litigation occurring. For 2021-22, there were 71,733 PFB’s filed on all open claims.  That is a 3% increase over last year but slightly down from pre-pandemic levels.   The most common litigated issue last year was medical benefits, being named on 107% of all PFB’s (some PFB’s requested more than one medical benefit).  That’s a pretty big  increase over the average number of PFB’s seeking a medical benefit as measured over  the last 18 years.  

The report breaks it all down by venue if you want to see trends in specific parts of the state as well.

Enjoy!

https://www.jcc.state.fl.us/JCC/publications/reports/2022AnnualReport/OJCC_AnnualReport2021-22.pdf

Sincerely,

Morgan Indek | Managing Partner