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The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Middleburg-based Southeastern Subcontractors Inc. for failing to protect employees from the dangerous hazards of working outdoors in extreme heat. OSHA investigated the roofing company after an employee died from hyperthermia while working at a residential site in Jacksonville. Hyperthermia occurs when the body’s temperature is abnormally high because it cannot regulate the heat from the environment. The Agency issued one serious citation for exposing employees to heat-related injuries, and one other-than-serious violation for failing to report a workplace fatality to OSHA within 8 hours of its occurrence. The company faces proposed penalties of $22,173. Click to read more:

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Coastal Roofing Inc. for exposing employees to fall and other hazards at a St. Johns, Florida, worksite. The Jacksonville-based roofing company faces $105,283 in proposed penalties. OSHA investigated the company as part of the Agency's Regional Emphasis Program on Falls in Construction. Coastal Roofing was cited for failing to ensure employees utilized a fall protection system. OSHA also cited the contractor for failing to ensure employees utilized eye protection and not extending a portable ladder 3 feet above the roof landing. OSHA cited the company for similar safety violations in January 2018. "The use of fall protection is not an option – it is a legal requirement that saves lives," said OSHA Jacksonville Acting Area Office Director Michelle Gonzalez. "This company’s continued failure to comply with fall protection standards puts the lives of its employees at risk for serious or fatal injury." Click to read more:

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited L.A. Disaster Relief and Property Maintenance LLC after an employee suffered burn injuries at a McDavid, Florida, worksite. The property maintenance and land clearing company faces $94,415 in penalties. OSHA investigators determined that the company owner directed the injured employee to ignite wood and debris inside an air burn box using a torch and gasoline, which caused an explosion. OSHA cited the company for failing to implement a hazard communication program to familiarize employees with flammable and combustible dust hazards. Click here to read more:

A Sanford maker of fishing lures got caught not paying an employee money due under a pair of federal acts, the U.S. Department of Labor announced. Labor’s Wage and Hour investigators found Producto Lure didn’t pay an employee two weeks of emergency sick leave after a doctor ordered the employee to self-quarantine for the coronavirus. Producto owed that money under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which applies to some public entities and private employers with fewer than 500 people. Wage and Hour also found Producto owed the worker for work done before the self-quarantine, a basic violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Click to Read More:

The House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee opened hearings on a 28-page draft bill on workers’s compensation reform Tuesday, as Chairman Danny Burgess urged members and interest groups to “conduct ourselves in good faith — that we not plant our flags on one side or the other and be absolutely inflexible.” Burgess said the draft represents a “fair, comprehensive approach to fixing this problem.” He also conceded: “It’s by no means perfect.” Click here to read more: ​

A Miami woman was arrested in Lake Worth last Thursday after investigators say she defrauded an insurance company out of millions of dollars. ​ Carmen Montalvo-Rivera, 40, was arrested and charged with fraud on the evening of Oct. 27. She was released early Friday morning after posting $47,500 bond. Click here to read more:

A former Miami-Dade County fire inspector was charged Friday with lying to the state when he said he did not make money while collecting workers' compensation benefits. Anthony Dorta, 46, was charged with filing a false and fraudulent insurance claim, a third-degree felony. An investigation by the Miami-Dade inspector general, the Florida department of financial services and the Miami-Dade state attorney's office found that Dorta worked as a handyman while he was supposedly unable to work for the county due to an on-the-job injury to his left knee. Click here to read more:

Florida insurance regulators have ordered another Broward County insurer, Guarantee Insurance Co., to stop writing new business after discovering financial weaknesses. The Fort Lauderdale-based workers compensation provider has been placed under administrative supervision by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, according to an Aug. 18 consent order released by the state office. Click here to read more:

Florida insurance regulators have placed workers’ compensation carrier Guarantee Insurance Co. in receivership due to inadequate reserves. According to documents from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR), the company was materially under-reserved at year end 2016 and consented to being placed in receivership on Nov. 13, 2017. Click here to read more:

Florida insurance regulators took over Fort Lauderdale-based Guarantee Insurance Co. Monday, two weeks after determining that the company was insolvent. A spokesman for the Office of Florida's Chief Financial Officer told the Business Journal that the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) was officially appointed as a receiver of Guarantee Insurance Co. late Monday. Click here to read more:

Minimum-wage workers will get a pay raise, businesses will get a break on insurance bills and a few new laws took effect Tuesday as 2019 begins in Florida. Minimum-wage workers will start earning $8.46 an hour Tuesday, up from $8.25 an hour in 2018 — and more than a dollar above the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Florida’s minimum wage ticks up each year because of a 2004 constitutional amendment that ties the rate to inflation Click here to read more:

A new bill being considered by Florida lawmakers would stop insurance companies from dodging worker’s compensation claims by helping deport illegal immigrants injured on the job. Legislators and immigration advocates have been pushing for reform since ProPublica and NPR published an expose on the practice last summer. Both outlets documented some 130 cases in which immigrants who’d suffered ‘legitimate workplace injuries’ were flagged to law enforcement by their employers’ insurance agencies. Click to read more: