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.
Eastern Industries, Inc. v. Burnham
750 So.2d 748 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000)
Petition for permanent total benefits filed. Maximum
medical improvement reached and hearing. JCC found
claimant to have suffered a catastrophic injury
and PTD was ordered. Penalties and interest were
required to be paid by the employer/carrier going back
to the date of maximum medical improvement. On appeal,
permanent total finding affirmed but the award of
penalties beginning at MMI reversed.
Section 440.20(6), Florida Statutes (1994), mandates
the payment of penalties by the employer/carrier
which refuses to pay compensation benefits at the
time the facts then known to the employer/carrier would
support an obligation to pay, unless a notice is filed
under Section 440.20(4) ("pay and investigate"
provisions) or unless such non-payment results from
circumstances over which the employer or carrier had
no control. As of the date of MMI, it was not known by
the employer/carrier that the claimant was PT. The
finding of PTD by the JCC was premised not upon medical
evidence of a permanent and total disability but upon
the claimant's inability to secure work in the national
economy given her restrictions, age, education, and
work experience. JCC relied on testimony of claimant's
vocational experts to establish entitlement to PTD
benefits. The claimant's experts did not file their
reports until two weeks prior to the merits hearing.
