Case ID: so2d_773/html/1283-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. WEBSTER, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HOGAN & SONS, INC. and Humana Workers Compensation Services, Inc., Appellants, v. Linda BIRKS, Appellee.
    No. 1D99-2691.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
    Dec. 29, 2000.
    
      Gilbert R. Panzer, Jr. of Rigell, Leal & Ring, P.A., West Palm Beach, for appellants.
    Gray Camfield, Palm Bay; Bill McCabe, Longwood, for appellee.
   PER CURIAM.

The employer and carrier (E/C) appeal a final workers’ compensation order awarding permanent total disability and supplemental benefits to the claimant, Linda A. Birks. We affirm all issues on appeal and affirm the final order as hereafter modified for correction of a scrivener’s error as to the date of maximum medical improvement (MMI).

In their second point on appeal the E/C assert, correctly, that the date of MMI stated in the decretal portion of the order, February 12, 1996, conflicts with the finding of the Judge of Compensation Claims specifically accepting the date stated in the testimony of Dr. Paul H. Borgmeier, M.D., in which the doctor fixed the date of MMI as February 12, 1997. The record supports the Judge’s finding, and the claimant concedes in her answer brief that the correct date of MMI was February 12, 1997. Accordingly, we modify the final order to reflect the date of MMI as February 12, 1997. See Gunite Works v. Barnes, 502 So.2d 65 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987)(correcting obvious scrivener’s error in workers’ compensation order).

AFFIRMED as modified.

ERVIN, J. and SMITH, LARRY, Senior Judge, concur.

WEBSTER, J., dissents with opinion.

WEBSTER, J.,

dissenting.

The order which is the subject of this appeal was not entered until some 254 days after the final hearing. The order contains numerous factual errors. Given those errors, and the fact that an assessment of the claimant’s credibility was critical to the outcome, I am of the opinion that the order is stale; and that, in the interest of justice, it should be vacated, and the case remanded for a new hearing. E.g., Maddox v. Rinaldi’s Expressway Lanes, 459 So.2d 421 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984) (reversing an order entered five months after the final hearing because the claimant’s credibility was critical and it was apparent from the order that the facts were not fresh in the deputy commissioner’s mind when the order was entered); Rappoport v. American Hospital, 406 So.2d 1244 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981) (reversing because a 284-day delay between the final hearing and the entry of the order was “excessive” considering that “the chief issue [wa]s the credibility of the claimant”). Because the majority affirms, respectfully, I dissent.