Florida Injury Victim Lawyer Blog

As a Florida attorney who represents injured workers in workers' compensation cases I frequently deal with the strict time limitations placed on injured workers under Florida's workers' compensation laws. In most cases under Florida's workers' compensation laws an injured worker is required to notify their employer of the accident and/or injury within 30 days from the date of the accident and/or injury.

Florida Statutes 440.185(1) states:

An employee who suffers an injury arising out of and in the course of employment shall advise his or her employer of the injury within 30 days after the date of or initial manifestation of the injury. Failure to so advise the employer shall bar a petition under this chapter unless:

(a) The employer or the employer's agent had actual knowledge of the injury;

(b) The cause of the injury could not be identified without a medical opinion and the employee advised the employer within 30 days after obtaining a medical opinion indicating that the injury arose out of and in the course of employment;

(c) The employer did not put its employees on notice of the requirements of this section by posting notice pursuant to s. 440.055; or

(d) Exceptional circumstances, outside the scope of paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) justify such failure.

If an injured worker fails to notify his or her employer within this 30 day time period their claim will probably be denied by the employer and its workers' compensation insurance carrier.

In order to avoid this potentially devastating pitfall I strongly encourage injured workers to notify their employer of the accident and/or injury in writing and to keep a copy of that document for future reference. Having handled over a thousand workers' compensation cases in Florida I frequently encounter employers who deny notice of the work accident and/or injury even though they were verbally notified of the accident and/or injury by the injured worker verbally in an attempt to wrongfully deny the workers' compensation claim. At that point it's the injured worker's word against that of his or her employer and as you can see the chances of winning are 50/50 at best.

If you or one of your loved ones has been the victim of a work related accident you should get a free initial consultation with an attorney in your area in order to better understand you rights and just as important, your obligations under Florida's workers' compensation laws. These laws can be quite complex and place strict time limitations on the injured worker. If these time limitations are not complied with your workers' compensation can be denied. I can assure you that the adjuster on your claim has an attorney counseling him or her, shouldn't you?