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In a vote of 20 to 9, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would alter the state’s workers’ compensation laws. The 34-page bill, which had been impeded on multiple occasions, was reintroduced to the House with several new amendments. Should the bill be signed into law, it will affect a number of different statutes including but not limited to attorney fee schedules, the extension of benefit periods, the program’s enrollment process and medical reimbursement. Click here to read more: ​

With the House version of workers’ compensation reform, our state legislators are dangerously close to repeating the mistakes of the past. We cannot have a lopsided system that creates a chasm between the army of lawyers and executives who represent workers’ comp insurance companies and the injured worker who needs a competent lawyer to fight for the benefits that their employer has purchased. ​ Thankfully, the Florida Senate has taken the lead in advocating for effective, meaningful reforms that we know to be constitutional. We must always keep in mind that workers’ compensation laws are designed to ensure the quick and efficient delivery of medical benefits to injured workers so they can recover from their injuries and return to work. The laws are not designed to grant one side a competitive advantage in the court system. Families that depend on the livelihoods of injured workers are counting on a fair system that will give them an avenue for redress when they are wrongly denied benefits. Click here to read more: ​

Employee dissatisfaction with Florida’s workers’ compensation system emerged as an issue during a House committee hearing Wednesday, amid suggestions they deserve more choice over their treating physicians. Rep. George Moraitis Jr. recalled a meeting with firefighters who complained of their medical treatment under the system. ​“We really need to have a solution that helps the workers,” he said. ​ Click here to read more:

The Naples Daily News brought the heat on this one. Journalist Maria Perez debuted a yearlong harrowing investigation this week that uncovered the commonplace practice of Florida staff leasing companies for high-risk jobs hiring undocumented immigrant workers and axing them without compensation when they became injured. The piece tells the story of Abednego de la Cruz, who sliced his finger to the bone cutting concrete blocks in Tallahassee. He was fired and was refused medical care by his employer, Holiday-based SouthEast Personnel Leasing. “Instead, his employer called the police and had him arrested,” Perez reported. He was undocumented and now faces deportation, fearing he will not be able to raise his daughter whom was born in the U.S. Click to read more:

A former employee is suing SunShine Cleaning Systems Inc. for alleged retaliation. Samuel Oge filed a complaint on Aug. 3 in the Broward County Circuit Court, alleging that the defendant breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing. According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that he suffered loss of employment, loss of income, worsening of his injury, humiliation and embarrassment on March 3 due to the defendant allegedly terminating his employment in retaliation for the plaintiff's claim for workers' compensation benefits due to an injury he allegedly sustained in the scope of his employment. Click here to read more:

An Orange County man is suing a Maitland company, alleging violation of workers compensation acts. Oscar Moquette filed a complaint Nov. 28 in Orange County Circuit Court against Skansa-Granite-Lane, alleging violation of the Florida Workers' Compensation Law. Click here to read more:

A ‘clean’ workers’ compensation bill is headed to the House floor after the Commerce Committee rejected a series of amendments pitched as worker-friendly Tuesday. The bill (PCB COM 18-01) cleared the panel on a vote of 18-8. It closely follows legislation the full House approved during the spring Legislative Session, in that it encourages injured workers and carriers — and their attorneys — to attempt to resolve disputes amicably. Click here to read more:

It looks like Sen. Gary Farmer has been keeping up with the news. ProPublica and the Naples Daily News both published in-depth investigations last year that highlighted a state law used by businesses and insurers to profit from undocumented workers and then dump them after they’re injured. Click to read more:

Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier has issued a Final Order granting approval to the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) for a statewide overall rate level decrease of 9.5% and premium level decrease of 9.8%. This applies to both new and renewal workers’ compensation insurance policies effective in Florida as of January 1, 2018. Click here to read more:

An immigration measure heading toward the full Constitutional Revision Commission would require all employers in the state to use a federal electronic system to verify the legal work eligibility of every new hire drew criticism on Friday from agriculture and business groups concerned with filling a worker shortage in their industries. Representatives with the Florida Farm Bureau and the Florida Homeowners Associations said the verification system, called E-Verify, would make it more difficult to find workers to work in the fields and in the home building industry. Click to read more:

A state board on Tuesday approved updated reimbursement rates for medical providers, hospitals, and ambulatory care centers that would add $144 million to Florida’s workers’ compensation costs. The Three-Member Panel, which oversees medical reimbursement under the workers’ comp system, unanimously approved the new rates during a public hearing in Tallahassee. The rates need approval by the Legislature — not a certainty by any means, given that the lawmakers last acted on the panel’s recommendations in 2014. Those rates took effect in 2015. Click to read more:

The vast majority of workers at a Naples, Florida, produce packing plant are accused in a scheme to commit workers compensation fraud, the Florida Department of Financial Services said Tuesday. Some 146 employees, many of them immigrant workers, at Fruit Dynamics L.L.C. have been charged with workers comp fraud as a result of an identity theft investigation that began in mid-2013, Maj. Geoffrey Branch of the state agency told Business Insurance in an email. Click here to read more: