Florida: With Regard to Requested $2,000 Advance, JCC May Consider Worker’s Financial Need

A Florida appellate court affirmed an order by a Judge of Compensation Claims that denied a workers’ compensation claimant’s request for a $2,000 advance pursuant to § 440.20(12)(c), Fla. Stat., because she failed to establish a financial need for the advance. The claimant contended that in as much as her stated purpose for the advance was to pay for an independent medical examination in support of her pending claim for continued medical treatment, the JCC should not have considered her lack of financial need. The appellate court disagreed. The court acknowledged that in Taylor v. Air Canada, 136 So. 3d 786 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014), the court held that using an advance to take the deposition of a witness who might advance a claim's compensability satisfied the nexus requirement. The court stressed, however, that nothing in the statute supported the notion that financial need should not be considered when the nexus requirement had been met. Although a claimant was not required to live a pauper's life to be eligible for an advance, that did not mean that the JCC was precluded from considering the claimant's financial need (or lack thereof) when determining whether to award an advance— even if the purpose of the advance was to fund litigation costs. To hold otherwise would frustrate the purpose of the advance statute. 

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

See Anderson v. Broward Cty. Sheriff's Office, 2018 Fla. App. LEXIS 10268 (July 25, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 132.07.

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