Disability Law

Committee Substitute for SB 2072 Posted

By David A. McCranie, Esq.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's substitute for SB 2072 - CS/SB 2072 - has now been posted online by the legislature.  As amended, the bill would:

• Amend §440.20(11)(c) to exempt from the restrictions imposed by §440.34(1) the amount of claimant-paid attorney's fees paid as part of a lump-sum settlement.  Instead, the amount of those fees would be subject only to the guidelines imposed by the Florida Supreme Court governing contingency fee arrangements [33?% of the first $1M if settled before the filing of an answer; 40% of the first $1M if recovered after the filing of an answer.  See R. Regulating Fla. Bar 4-1.5(f)];
• Amend §440.34(1) to provide for carrier-paid claimant's attorney's fees in any case where the benefits requested in a petition are furnished more than 30 days after the filing of the petition;
• Amend §440.34(1) to increase the amount of carrier-paid claimant's attorney's fees to 25% of the first $5,000 in benefits secured by the attorney, 20% of the next $5,000, and 15% of the remaining benefits secured.  However, the JCC may increase the amount of those fees "up to the [amount of the] fee paid by the employer or carrier to the employer's or carrier's attorneys" if the judge determines that the employer or carrier "engaged in a bad faith denial of benefits, unreasonably delayed furnishing benefits that were due and owing, or unreasonably continued or increased the expense of litigation;"
• Add §440.34(8) to permit claimants and their attorneys to contract freely for the amount of any claimant-paid attorney's fees, but prohibiting a claimant's attorney from charging the claimant a fee where he has already been paid a fee by the carrier;
• Add §440.34(9) to prohibit carrier-paid claimant's attorney's fees from being used to justify a rate change for premiums charged to employers for workers' compensation insurance.

Full post as published by Florida Workers’ Compensation Law Blog on April 18, 2009 (boomark / email).