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Oct. 23, 2008 Florida Supreme Court Affirms Injured Worker’s Rights Attorneys to Receive “Reasonable Fees” in Workers’ Compensation Cases Today, Thursday, October 23, in Emma Murray v. Mariner Health (Case No. SC07-244), the Florida Supreme Court addressed the issue of attorney’s fees payable by the employer/carrier to the claimant’s counsel in a Workers’ Compensation matter and concluded that in this circumstance the claimant is entitled to recover a “reasonable” attorney’s fee. The decision involved the interpretation of a statutory provision (§440.34, Fla. Stat.) that had been altered as part of the drastic changes to the Workers’ Compensation law enacted by the legislature in 2003. The Court reached its conclusion by applying rules of statutory construction to what it found to…Read More

By Claudeth Henry, R.N. J.D. In what was surely the most widely anticipated workers’ compensation case in several years, the Florida Supreme Court in Emma Murray v. Mariner, a 5-0 ruling, invalidated the 2003 amendment (PDF) to §440.34. That amendment attempted to limit carrier paid claimant’s attorney’s fees to a strict percentage of the benefits secured. Declining to address the constitutional challenges, the court concluded that the statute was ambiguous. The ambiguity arose between subsection (1) which forbade the JCC from awarding attorney’s fees in any amount other than a percentage of the benefits secured by the attorney, and subsection (3) which requires the JCC to award “a reasonable attorney’s fee,” but setting no criteria for how to determine a…Read More

For the past several years, injured workers in the state of Florida have found it difficult to obtain competent legal representation in their worker’s compensation case because of the 2003 amendments to the Florida worker’s compensation statutes limiting carrier paid fees to claimant’s attorneys who successfully secured benefits on the claimant’s behalf. In Murray v. Mariner Health (PDF), a case challenging the statute, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the statue was ambiguous and that the fee compensating the attorney at $8.11 per hour for securing benefits was unreasonable. It didn’t take long for certain industry to attack the ruling. The following day Associated Industries of Florida, one of the largest insurance industries in the state of Florida, criticized the…Read More

Check out “Insurance Company Rules” - a collaboration between Health Care For America Now (HCAN) and Public Service Administration (PSA).Read More

By Will Dunham Tue Mar 18, 2:44 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A surprising number of people — more than 60 percent — still suffer significant pain a year after a traumatic injury in a car crash or other cause, showing the need for better pain treatment, researchers said. In a study published on Monday in the journal Archives of Surgery, researchers tracked 3,047 patients ages 18 to 84 from 14 U.S. states who survived an acute traumatic injury.A year after the injury, 63 percent reported that they still experienced pain related to the injury, with most having pain in more than one region of the body. On average, the patients assessed their pain at 5.5 on a 10-point scale…Read More

After running a story in April about a breast cancer survivor’s battle to get disability insurance benefits from Cigna Group Insurance, Good Morning America said that they have received a flood of e-mails from viewers who were struggling with similar problems. According to GMA, U.S. House Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., heard their report and says she wants to pursue legislation that would penalize insurance companies if they wrongly deny claims. They quoted her as saying “Right now there is no punishment. I’m going to make sure that we pursue these insurance companies and make sure that they are covering the claims that they are supposed to until we can get this law passed.” I often hear from clients who…Read More

Some Disability policies blatantly discriminate against the mentally ill. Many policies set limits on the amount of benefits they will pay if mental illness plays any part in a person’s disability. Some will even terminate benefits after 24 months if mental illness is the reason the person is unable to work. It should be no surprise that even our government discriminates against the mentally ill by the amount they pay for medical services for mental illness. Currently, Medicare recipients pay 50% co-pay for mental health services. Therefore, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 was a welcome reprieve for patients with mental illness. Under the new law, Medicare recipients will eventually pay the same 20 percent co-payment…Read More

Federal Court refuses to dismiss ERISA claim. Employer’s policy prohibited employees from smoking tobacco products at any time regardless of whether they were in the workplace or not. The plaintiff was fired for having tested positive in a urine test. The purpose of the policy was to save money on medical insurance costs and promote healthy lifestyles among employees. The plaintiff claimed that his termination violated Section 510 of ERISA because the company’s action “interfered with” his participation in the company’s employee benefit plan, which he would have been entitled to had he remained employed. The plaintiff has also filed an invasion of privacy state claim. Rodrigues v. Scotts Co., LLC, 07-10104 (D. Mass. Jan. 30, 2008)Read More

We have all heard the Surgeon General’s warning: smoking is bad for your health. Now, it seems a new label is needed stating that smoking is bad for your job. Recently a Massachusetts employee was terminated form his employment because he tested positive for nicotine. According to the employee, he never smoked on the job or during working hours. He did not smoke during breaks from work or in the presence of other employees or customers of the employer. In his complaint, the employee alleged that the company’s anti-smoking policy violates the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) because it discriminates against the participants in the corporation’s health benefits plan for the purpose of interfering with their receipt of medical…Read More