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Appeals Court Declares Florida Workers’ Compensation System Unconstitutional

A Florida statute that places a 2-year limit on temporary disability payments has been struck down by an appeals court as unconstitutional because it left a seriously injured firefighter in “limbo.”

Bradley Westphal, a firefighter and paramedic in St. Petersburg, Fla., suffered severe injuries to his back and knee while responding to a call. The injuries caused nerve damage in his legs, and required spine surgery and other treatment.

His workers’ compensation claim was accepted by his employer/insurance carrier, and Westphal started receiving temporary disability payments. He received these payments for 104 weeks as per the law, after which said payments were discontinued in 2011.

Westphal was still medically and physically unable to perform his old duties, and incapable of finding new employment. He subsequently filed for permanent disability, which was rejected by the Judges of Compensation Claims (JCC) since Westphal had still not reached the stage of “maximum medical improvement.”

In other words, Westphal was in a “statutory gap” between expired temporary benefits and unapproved permanent benefits, which would not kick in until it could be medically verified that his condition would not improve any further.
Since the law does not allow Westphal to sue his employer for such damages, he was left with no legal redress to his situation. All he could do was wait until the employer/carrier’s doctors certified that he was permanently disabled and would not recover enough to be able to be l employed. 

Worse yet, even if in the future he did get this permanent disability certification, Westphal would still have no legal right to recover the unpaid disability benefits for this in-between period.

At this point, the only thing the First District Court of Appeal had to decide was whether to declare the entire workers’ compensation system unconstitutional, or separate this particular statute from the rest of the law. They chose the latter, and the Florida statute now says that temporary benefits can be paid out for 260 weeks.

Did you know?
There are exceptions under workers’ compensation laws that allow employees to sue an employer.
A specific act or dangerous working conditions attributed to the employer’s negligence can be cited as cause for filing a personal injury lawsuit even if the employer is covered by workers’ compensation insurance.