NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
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Recently,
Florida’s First District Court of Appeal (which handles all workers’
compensation appeals in the state) dramatically changed how the Statute of Limitations is
applied in Florida workers’ compensation claims. The SOL is set forth in
Section 440.19, Florida Statutes, and provides as follows:
(1) Except to the extent provided
elsewhere in this section, all employee petitions for benefits under this
chapter shall be barred unless the employee, or the employee’s estate if the
employee is deceased, has advised the employer of the injury or death pursuant
to s. 440.185(1) and the petition is filed within 2 years after the date on
which the employee knew or should have known that the injury or death arose out
of work performed in the course and scope of employment.
(2) Payment of any indemnity benefit or
the furnishing of remedial treatment, care, or attendance pursuant to either a
notice of injury or a petition for benefits shall toll the limitations period
set forth above for 1 year from the date of such payment. This tolling period
does not apply to the issues of compensability, date of maximum medical
improvement, or permanent impairment.
Historically,
this has been interpreted to mean that the SOL expires upon the later of two
years from the date of the accident or one year from the date of the last
provision of benefits. However, in the recent case of Estes v. Palm Beach
County School District, the First DCA reshaped the interpretation of
Section 440.19 by redefining the word “toll” as it is used in 440.19(2). Under
the historic interpretation, the word “toll” is defined as “extend,” meaning
that the provision of medical or indemnity benefits extends the expiration of
the SOL for one year. In Estes, the Court redefines “toll” to mean
“suspend, stop temporarily, or abate.” Specifically, the Court stated “[w]e
therefore hold en banc that the tolling provision in § 440.19(2) suspends or
stops temporarily the limitations-period clock established in subsection (1),
instead of extending separate one-year limitations periods for claimants to
file claims in these cases.”
The
Court examined how it had previously used “toll” in its prior decisions and
found that their earlier decisions did not properly interpret the term as it is
used in Section 440.19. They performed a lengthy textual analysis of how “toll”
had been used in various prior cases and statutes in other contexts (ex:
medical malpractice and property insurance claims) and determined that the correct
interpretation of “toll” is to pause, rather than to extend.
In Estes,
the claimant was injured on September 30, 2021. She last received authorized
treatment on January 26, 2023. Under the historic SOL interpretation, the SOL
would have run on January 26, 2024, one year from the last provision of benefits. However, the Court here held that Section
440.19 provides two separate clocks: a one-year clock which begins to run after
each provision of benefits and resets upon each additional provision of
benefits, and a two-year SOL master clock which does not even begin to run
until the one-year clock has expired. The Court stated:
And so, here, under § 440.19, after an
employee knows or should have known of a qualifying workplace injury, the
two-year limitations-period clock begins to run. But then, if an E/C provides
benefits after the injury, the limitations-period clock is stopped while the
one-year tolling clock begins running (and then restarts after every subsequent
provision of a benefit). The limitations-period clock restarts again one year
after the provision of the last benefit.
Put a different way, the two-year SOL creates a bank of 730 days that must run out before the SOL has expired on a claim. Days are subtracted from this bank only if it has been more than one year since the last provision of benefits. If benefits are provided, a new one-year clock begins to run, and days are not subtracted from the bank until the one-year clock expires. This effectively creates an SOL that is three years from the last provision of benefits minus any time that elapsed between the date of accident and the first provision of benefits.[1] The Employer/Carrier in Estes is seeking review from the Florida Supreme Court, but the two-clock method set forth in Estes remains the applicable SOL for now.
[1] Because the one year clock does not begin
to run until benefits are provided, any time that elapsed between the accident
and the first provision of benefits would theoretically be subtracted from the two year master clock.