Florida: Heightened Burden Sinks Claim for Fungal Meningitis

A Florida appellate court held that a Judge of Compensation Claims erred in awarding workers’ compensation benefits to a claimant for an alleged toxic exposure claim in the form of fungal meningitis in as much as the statutes in question—§ 440.02(1), Fla. Stat. and § 440.09(1), Fla. Stat.—required the the worker establish his or her claim by clear and convincing proof that the condition was caused by a workplace exposure. That an expert indicated claimant “most likely” acquired the fungus in the course and scope of his employment was insufficient, stressed the court. The court acknowledged what it called the “Herculean” task created by the heightened burden of proof, but stressed that it was for the Legislature, not the courts, to set such policies.

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 City of Titusville v. Taylor, 2019 Fla. App. LEXIS 17914 (1st DCA, Nov. 27, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 52.02.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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