Cases
Workers' Compensation
Listed below is McConnaughhay, Coonrod, Pope, Weaver & Stern, P.A.'s workers' compensation case law database. The database dates back until 1971 and includes over 5500 workers' compensation court decisions.
To view the case summaries, select one of the general topics listed below.
Ferraro v. Marr
467 So.2d 809, 10 Fla. L. Week. 1077, (Fla.App. 2 Dist., Apr 24, 1985)
When an employee receives workers' compensation
benefits as a result of consciously prosecuting a
workers' compensation claim he cannot later sue his
employer in a civil action alleging he was not in the
course and scope of his employment at the time of his
accident. The mere filing of a workers' compensation
claim does not preclude an injured employee from
pursuing common law remedies. However an employee who
filed a workers' compensation claim for injuries caused
by an accident and who receives compensation payments
is deemed to have elected his remedy so as to preclude
the prosecution of a later suit in which he alleges
that his injuries did not result from an accident but
rather from the willful and wanton negligence of his
employer in failing to provide a safe place for him to
work. In this case the injured worker consciously
filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits and
received them. Thereafter he was precluded in
asserting that a co-employee was guilty of willful and
wanton conduct for which benefits could be obtained in
a common law action.An employee who files a workers'
compensation claim for injuries caused by an accident
and who receives compensation payment has elected his
remedy so as to preclude the prosecution of a later
suit in which he alleged that his injuries did not
result from an accident which arose out of and in the
course of his employment. A passive acceptance of
workers' compensation benefits does not prevent the
employee from contending in a common law action against
his employer that his injury occurred outside the scope
of his employment. This case involved a claimant
consciously filing a claim for workers' compensation
benefits and collecting payment. The court ruled that
he was thereafter precluded from filing a cause of
action against a co-employee since a co-employee has
the same exclusive remedy rights that an employer has.
The question of whether the plaintiff elected his
remedy or was estopped in taking an inconsistent
position is a question of law to be decided by the
court.