Case ID: so2d_894/html/0287-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PUBLIC STORAGE and Hartford Insurance Company, Appellants, v. Esmeralda GALANO, Appellee.
    No. 1D04-1269.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
    Feb. 1, 2005.
    Rehearing Denied March 2, 2005.
    Robert L. Teitler and Warren Brown of Walton Lantaff Schroeder & Carson, LLP, Miami, for Appellants.
    Martha D. Fornaris, Coral Gables, and Bill McCabe, Longwood, for Appellee.
   PER CURIAM.

In this case, the trial court correctly found that appellants failed to deny com-pensability of appellee’s workplace injury within 120 days “after the initial provision of benefits.” § 440.20(4), Fla. Stat. (2002). Accordingly, appellants waived the right to deny compensability. See Hutchinson v. Lykes Smithfield Packing, 870 So.2d 144 (Fla. 1st DCA 2004). Where the employer/carrier seeks relief from the harshness of the 120-day “pay and investigate” provision, the burden is on the employer/carrier to demonstrate “material facts relevant to the issue of compensability that it could not have discovered through reasonable investigation within the 120-day period.” § 440.20(4), Fla. Stat. (2002). Neither in the pretrial stipulation, nor elsewhere, did appellants assert entitlement to relief from the 120-day rule, nor would competent substantial evidence in this record support such relief.

AFFIRMED.

WOLF, C.J., KAHN, and POLSTON, JJ., Concur.