Workers’ Compensation For First Responders

Florida, and most other U.S. states, does not award workers’ compensation for emotional injuries (unless the emotional injury goes hand in hand with a physical injury). However, in the last decade or so, a movement has begun in the U.S. to carve out an exception to the rule for the injuries sustained by first responders. If you work in these industries and have been injured on the job, you may be able to collect workers’ compensation even if your injury is not visible.

Historically Under-Served

The term ‘first responder’ is defined in Florida as a law enforcement officer (LEO), firefighter, paramedic or emergency medical technician (EMT) that meet certain legal criteria. People in these professions are exposed to significant levels of physical danger and emotional trauma, to the point where Florida law recognizes post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an occupational disease for these workers.

Historically, these people were routinely denied workers’ compensation by the state system, because Florida’s workers’ compensation statute follows what is known as the impact rule – that is, it required that emotional injury come with a physical injury in order to be compensable. The fears of fraud surrounding psychological injury claims kept first responders in a strange kind of limbo – but as we as a society begin to better understand trauma and its after-effects, laws have begun to change with the science.

Important But Imperfect

Florida’s 2021 statute establishing the mechanisms by which first responders can seek care is a landmark piece of legislation. It was one of the first in the U.S. to clarify what constitutes an on-the-job injury for a first responder, and to establish that intangible injuries can be compensable at all. It also sets the evidentiary standard – ‘clear and convincing evidence’ – by which a person must be able to establish the harm they have suffered.

That said, the statute as written leaves loopholes and questions that may still leave some injured first responders out in the proverbial cold. For example, PTSD is described as a ‘compensable occupational disease’ only when an ‘authorized treating physician’ diagnoses it as a reaction to experiencing one or more of a list of events. While in theory, some treating physicians may expand the list for an individual case, it still means that a person afflicted after a different event might be denied simply due to how their brain works.

Call An Orlando Workers’ Compensation Attorney

Being a first responder is often a thankless job. Slowly, Florida and other U.S. states have begun to realize the trauma that one can see day in and day out, but receiving care is not as easy as it could be. If you have questions or concerns about the process of receiving workers’ compensation, an Orlando workers’ compensation attorney from the Hornsby Law Group can try to help answer your questions and guide you through the process of obtaining the care you need. Contact our office today to schedule a consultation.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0100-0199/0112/Sections/0112.1815.html