Florida: Court Clarifies Level of Expertise Required for IMEs

An independent medical examiner (IME) offered by the employer to opine on whether there was a sufficient causal connection between an employee’s lung condition and his employment need not be a board-certified pulmonologist, held a Florida appellate court recently. The physician, who was board-certified in occupational medicine, testified that he had extensive experience in exposure cases leading to pulmonary problems. The IME physician opined that claimant’s 17-year history of cigarette smoking was the major contributing cause of his COPD condition and not an 11-day stent as an employee with the employer.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Blanco v. Creative Mgmt. Servs., LLC, 2019 Fla. App. LEXIS 15637 (1st DCA, Oct. 17, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 130.05[4].

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see