So concludes a five-year legal battle in a closely-watched workers’ compensation claim filed when a 53-year-old city firefighter suffered a serious back injury while moving furniture as he battled a blaze. Plaintiff was totally disabled and unable to work. But state legislators overhauled the state’s workers’ compensation system back in 2003 amid pressure from business and insurance lobbyists, ultimately cutting off temporary total disability benefits after just two years.

As plaintiff’s attorney later told the Orlando Sentinel, “For anyone that had continued disability, this is an important thing. You can’t arbitrarily say people aren’t going to get benefits after a magical time limit like this.” 

This is significant for those who have suffered a work-related personal injury because as a recent in-depth investigation by ProPublica revealed, worker benefits within the entire workers’ compensation system – the “grand bargain” between workers and their employers – has been eroded across the country in the last decade. The trade-off was always that workers were to be granted access to a no-fault system of benefits for work-related injuries, while forfeiting the right to sue the employer for negligence. Those benefits have been slowly chipped away by legislators in state after state, and yet, workers still don’t have the right to sue their employer.

The Westphal decision made it clear that when workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy to litigation, it must function as a reasonable alternative. Here, it did not. The state high court ruled that under article I, section 21 of the Florida Constitution, which prohibits denial of access to the courts, is trampled with this arbitrary cut-off date because it deprives the injured worker of disability benefits under these circumstances for an indefinite amount of time. Further, the court called Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals’ effort to spare the statute from being deemed unconstitutional “valiant,” but ruled the judiciary does not have the authority to rewrite a statute that is plainly written – even the point is to avoid that law being found unconstitutional.

Specifically, the statute says that once a worker reaches a maximum of 104 weeks or maximum medical improvement – whichever comes sooner – the worker’s temporary total disability benefits are to cease and the injured worker’s permanent impairment shall be determined (F.S. 440.15(2)(a) ). However, the statute fails to ensure the worker is at that time legally entitled to receive permanent disability benefits. Neither does it provide that the worker will be automatically deemed to be at maximum medical improvement, based on the fact that temporary total disability benefits have stopped.

The end result, the court noted, is that the law severs disability benefits from workers at a critical juncture – when the worker can’t go back to work and is totally disabled, but the employer’s chosen physicians decide the worker might still medically improve.

The court was careful to say that in finding this provision unconstitutional, it does not mean the entire workers’ compensation system in Florida has to be scrapped. Instead, the court employed a “statutory revival” of the previous limit on temporary total disability benefits, which was 260 weeks, or five years. That time frame, it had been previously established, is constitutional.

The 5-2 ruling was the second recent victory for labor groups and plaintiff’s attorneys, as the court recently ruled in April that a law establishing limits on attorney’s fees in workers’ compensation cases was unlawful.

If you have been a victim of a Miami work injury, call Chalik & Chalik at (954) 476-1000 or 1 (800) 873-9040.

Additional Resources:

Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg, June 9, 2016, Florida Supreme Court

More Blog Entries:

GEICO v. Macedo – Auto Insurer Must Pay Plaintiff Attorney Fees, May 20, 2016, Miami Work Injury Lawyer Blog

Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT rights advocacy group, recently released its annual Municipal Equality Index. The Index serves as an evaluation of protections, benefits and services offered to LGBT people at the municipal level. Tampa received a score of 89 out of a possible 100 — a huge jump up from its score of 66 in last year’s survey.

Tampa has been recognized for its non-discrimination policies in housing and employment for the past two years. But until recently, Tampa’s score suffered for its lack of protections for transgender people and for its lack of requirements for municipal contractors to offer employment protection to LGBT individuals.

Another advocacy group, Equality Florida, recently issued a press release calling Florida “the new frontline” for gay rights in the South. The release recognized the quickly changing political landscape in the state, and it outlined three changes the group hopes to help achieve in Florida within the next three years.

The first is gay marriage. In 2008, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships. Equality Florida says it is preparing to file a lawsuit to overturn the ban. The second goal strives for LGBT protections in employment, housing and public accommodations. In 30 states, U.S. law allows employers to fire employees for their sexual orientation. Third, the group plans to boost support to local initiatives to protect gay rights at the city and county level.

Advocacy groups will need some help from state lawmakers if they want to accomplish all their goals. Fortunately for them, Democrats in the Florida Senate are already advancing a number of civil rights bills for 2014, including protections against discrimination in housing, employment and banking.
Another measure would establish a statewide domestic partnership registry, similar to those already in place in Tampa, Clearwater and St. Petersburg. These registries, available to both same-sex and opposite-sex unmarried couples, ensure a host of legal protections that are automatically granted to married couples. These protections include the authority to make decisions regarding child care, health care and after-death care.

Equal protection for all Floridians under the law has not yet been achieved, but the work of lawmakers and advocacy groups has brought the goal much closer.

Contact a Tampa divorce lawyer and Brandon child custody attorney with the Osenton Law Offices, P.A. To learn more, visit http://www.brandonlawoffice.com/

A 6-year old St. Petersburg, Florida girl died this week after a tractor-trailer collided with her family’s minivan and knocked it into a water-filled ditch. While Heidi Harris sustained her initial injuries from the force of the violent rear-end collision, she essentially drowned, strapped to her booster seat as passers-by and firefighters dove into the water, desperately trying to save Heidi, her mother Luz Harris, and her 10 year old sister, Denise Harris.

The truck driver, Yisnel Gonzalez of Miami, was behind the Harris Family van, which had slowed to make a left turn into a a rural Osceola County, Florida driveway. Although apparently Gonzalez braked and steered into the southbound lane, he was traveling too fast and too close, and slammed into the back of the Harris van.

In addition to killing Heidi Harris, Luz and Denise Harris were also seriously injured in the crash.

Truck drivers simply must travel far enough behind other vehicles to assure a safe stopping distance. It takes a fully loaded tractor trailer 355 feet — a little over the length of an entire football field — to come to a stop from highway speed of 55 miles per hour. Seeing the devastation that a collision of this type can cause is a stark reminder of the importance of keeping a safe distance.

My sympathies go out to the Harris family for their tragic loss.

More recently, authorities placed the company into receivership under the control of the Division of Rehabilitation and Liquidation at the Florida Department of Financial Services.

Then, on March 28, 2013, Federal agents raided Universal’s St. Petersburg headquarters, ordering hundreds of employees out of the building.

The raid came shortly after the trustee in the company’s bankruptcy case alleged a “pattern of dishonesty or gross mismanagement.” Examples cited included a transfer of $18.3 million to a company controlled by Universal’s founder, Dr. Akshay Desai, and over $2 million is bonuses paid to executives in 2012.

Following Universal’s bankruptcy filing, state insurance regulators had already begun liquidating the company’s assets when the federal raid happened.

Desia founded Universal Health Care in 2005. It quickly grew to be the fourth-largest Medicare HMO in Florida. Companies like Universal combine Medicare payments and membership fees to provide coverage that expands upon that offered by Medicare. It eventually expanded its services to 23 states and boasted 140,000 members.

The first public news indicating the extent of Universal’s troubles came when Georgia’s insurance commissioner requested that it halt sales of new policies there, citing the company’s $22.1 net loss in the first half of 2012.

Over 800 former employees are now without a job. In a recent filing in Universal’s bankruptcy case, the company sought to eliminate employment agreements in place for seven executives. Universal’s motion said it no longer required the executives’ services, five of whom were hired less than one year ago.

Employees said they had not received 60 days’ notice before losing their jobs, as is often required before large numbers of layoffs.

Thousands of Universal customers were also left in the lurch, forced to search for new Medicare plans. Members who did not select their new coverage before the April will have to wait until the first of May for the switch to take effect.

The biggest losers, though, will likely be Universal’s investors, including Desai’s fellow doctors, who contributed capital in the company’s early years. Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah, who chairs the Florida Board of Medicine, invested some $6 million. Zachariah, who was removed from Universal’s board in 2009, has a lawsuit pending against Desai.

O. Reginald (“Reggie”) Osenton is the Owner and President of Osenton Law Offices, P.A. If you need a Tampa business bankruptcy attorney, bankruptcy lawyer, call 813.654.5777 or visit http://www.brandonlawoffice.com.

“Marble tiles make a spectacular addition, hands-down, when you’re looking to redo a formal master bedroom, and the latest stunning application is to do the tiling on the walls and the floors,” demonstrated Dean Dupre who runs Champion Tile, a Clearwater Flooring, Tampa Flooring, and tile installation company.

The fact is that marble has a variety of applications, and all of them seem to be taking the renovation and building industries by storm. “One thing to remember though is that you need to really know the basics about marble in order to truly enjoy it. In other words, know how to maintain it, what the various grades are, what drawbacks it may have, and how much each of the different grades may cost when used in a project,” added Dupre.

Certainly there are some cons to using marble tiles when it comes to how they are laid out. This is the result of the fact that marble has veining in it and that means color variations. “This means you won’t get a perfect match, but then, a lot of people don’t care if the match is perfect when they consider the overall beauty of the finished project,” said Dupre.

When thinking about marble tiles, remember that they are classified as the ‘leftovers’ after cutting the larger slabs. It’s done that way because the biggest sizes are given priority when being cut and graded. Since that is the case, if someone really insists on finding a complete set of tiles that are the same, they’re going to looking for a long time.

“So, when you buy marble tile, make sure you only purchase tiles from a reputable dealer, one who is authorized. Then, when it comes to the installation, get an experienced installer because they will know how to get consistency out of the tiles at the installation stage,” advised Dupre, who runs Champion Tile, a Clearwater Flooring, Tampa Flooring, and tile installation company.

Watch for the installer to embed the marble tile in a consistent mortar bed. This is done because colored marble tiles, for instance the black and green ones, have a tendency to curl up when they are too wet. So if the tile is in a bathroom, the installer should be anticipating this and doing what he needs to do to make sure the tiles are laid correctly. Once the tiles are in and the bathroom is done – enjoy.

To learn more, visit http://www.champtile.com.