Case Name: MEDICAL LOGISTICS, INC. and CNA Claimplus, Appellants, v. John MARCHINES, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2005-08-29
Citations: 911 So. 2d 823
Docket Number: No. 1D04-1367
Parties: MEDICAL LOGISTICS, INC. and CNA Claimplus, Appellants, v. John MARCHINES, Appellee.
Judges: WOLF, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 911
Pages: 823–827

Head Matter:
MEDICAL LOGISTICS, INC. and CNA Claimplus, Appellants, v. John MARCHINES, Appellee.
No. 1D04-1367.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
Aug. 29, 2005.
M. Michele Leach-Pachinger and Tonya Willis Pitts of Clark, DeMay, Fara & Fro- man, A Professional Association, Sarasota, for Appellants.
Harold E. Barker of Dicesare, Davidson & Barker, P.A., Lakeland, for Appellee.

Opinion:
ALLEN, J.
The employer/carrier appeal a workers' compensation order by which their fraud defense was denied and various benefits were awarded to the claimant. Although the evidence was sufficient to support each of the awards and did not compel a ruling in favor of the employer/carrier on its fraud defense, we reverse the order under review because the judge of compensation claims applied a per se rule, rather than the required case-specific analysis, in excluding surveillance evidence.
The judge issued a pretrial order directing that all discovery be noticed and submitted to the opposing party at least thirty days prior to the date of the final hearing. Twenty-one days prior to the final hearing, the claimant's counsel received copies of surveillance tapes from counsel for the employer/carrier. When the employer/carrier attempted to introduce these tapes at the final hearing, the claimant objected to their admission on the grounds that they were "untimely" and "unjustly prejudicial." Without inquiry as to how the claimant might have actually been procedurally prejudiced by the admission of the tapes, and acknowledging that the employer/carrier's counsel had, upon his receipt of the tapes, promptly forwarded copies to the claimant's counsel, the judge ruled that the tapes would not be admitted into evidence. The judge explained that his ruling was based upon his uniform policy that an employer/carrier's failure to provide notice of surveillance evidence at least thirty days prior to a final hearing will always result in a finding of procedural prejudice to a claimant.
Although a judge has broad discretion in determining whether to exclude evidence due to a party's failure to disclose the evidence within the time required by a pretrial order, the exclusion of such evidence is a drastic remedy which should pertain in only the most compelling circumstances and only after the judge has made a case-specific determination as to whether admission of the evidence would result in actual procedural prejudice to the objecting party. Binger v. King Pest Control, 401 So.2d 1310 (Fla.1981). The Binger court prescribed three factors to be considered by the judge in making this determination: (i) the objecting party's ability to cure the prejudice or, similarly, his independent knowledge of the existence of the evidence; (ii) the calling party's possible intentional, or bad faith, noncompliance with the pretrial order; and (iii) the possible disruption of the orderly and efficient trial of the case. The court explained that a judge should not exclude the evidence if consideration of these and other relevant factors reveals that use of the evidence would not substantially endanger the fairness of the proceeding.
Binger involved civil litigation in the circuit court, but the principles laid down there are appropriately applied outside that context. For example, the Binger analysis is quite similar to that prescribed by the supreme court for dealing with discovery violations in the criminal context, see Richardson v. State, 246 So.2d 771 (Fla.1971), and we have applied Binger in workers' compensation cases. See, e.g., Cedar Hammock v. Bonami, 672 So.2d 892 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996); Walters v. Keebler Co., 652 So.2d 976 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995).
Because the per se rule applied by the judge in the present case is antithetical to the case-specific analysis prescribed in Binger, the exclusion of the surveillance tapes on this basis was an abuse of discre tion and cannot be sustained. The order under review is accordingly reversed, and the case is remanded.
WOLF, J., concurs.
BENTON, J., dissents with written opinion.