Florida: Six-Month Limit on Mental Injury Benefits Passes Constitutional Muster

A Florida appellate court recently held that the state’s six-month limitation for temporary benefits for psychiatric injuries (which follow a physical injury) [see § 440.093(3), Fla. Stat.] is constitutional and that such benefits were not available to the claimant here, since his psychiatric injury arose more than a year after claimant had reached MMI on his back injury. Claimant had sustained a back injury in 2014, had undergone extensive surgery, and had been placed at MMI in early 2016. He claimed he subsequently suffered from a mental condition that was causally connected to his back injury. The court said the claim for temporary benefits for the mental condition was still untimely.

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 Kneer v. Lincare & Travelers Ins., 2019 Fla. App. LEXIS 5131 (1st DCA, Apr. 3, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 56.03.

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

 For a more detailed discussion of the case, see