Morgan’s Tip of the Week- New Constitutional Challenge
This week, the Florida Supreme Court agreed to hear the claimant’s appeal in the case of Stahl v. Hialeah Hospital, a challenge to the constitutionality of the Fla WC statute. The Fla Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case was discretionary, meaning they voluntary agreed to hear it.
The claimant was seeking Permanent Partial Disability benefits, which were removed from the statute in 2003. The other basis for the appeal to the Fla Supreme Court is the $10 co-pay after MMI. The allegation is that it was unconstitutional to remove PPD from the statute and also unconstitutional to make the claimant pay for a portion of his medical treatment with the co-pay.
The underlying Stahl case was handled by our firm, Vanessa Lipsky (Miami) and Russ Young (Sarasota), and we won both at the JCC level and on the claimant’s appeal to the 1st DCA. The claimant’s attorney is Mark Zientz, the same attorney who handled the Padgett case which was eventually overturned by the 3rd DCA in favor of the Employer/Carrier. The Stahl arguments are two of the same arguments made in Padgett, and they were also raised in some of the arguments in Westphal and Castellanos. We of course are not pushing the case, its been on the claimant’s side entirely.
The Fla Supreme Court has already heard these arguments at least in part. Westphal, (challenge to the 104 week cap/MMI required for PTD) was heard in June 2014, and Castellanos (challenge to atty fee cap) was heard in November 2014. No decisions on either of these yet, but they may likely render the questions in Stahl moot.
Below are the JCC decision and the 1st DCA opinion in Stahl: