Opinion ID: 1784363
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Florida's Workers' Compensation Law

Text: Having concluded that an express and direct conflict exists between this case and Kelly, we next review Florida's Workers' Compensation Law, chapter 440, Florida Statutes. The Workers' Compensation Law is a comprehensive scheme ... that generally provides workers' benefits without proof of fault and employers immunity from tort actions based upon the same work place incident. Taylor, 888 So.2d at 2. The Legislature has declared its intent that the Workers' Compensation Law be interpreted so as to assure the quick and efficient delivery of disability and medical benefits to an injured worker and to facilitate the worker's return to gainful reemployment at a reasonable cost to the employer. It is the specific intent of the Legislature that workers' compensation cases shall be decided on their merits. The workers' compensation system in Florida is based on a mutual renunciation of common-law rights and defenses by employers and employees alike. In addition, it is the intent of the Legislature that the facts in a workers' compensation case are not to be interpreted liberally in favor of either the rights of the injured worker or the rights of the employer. Additionally, the Legislature hereby declares that disputes concerning the facts in workers' compensation cases are not to be given a broad liberal construction in favor of the employee on the one hand or of the employer on the other hand, and the laws pertaining to workers' compensation are to be construed in accordance with the basic principles of statutory construction and not liberally in favor of either employee or employer. It is the intent of the Legislature to ensure the prompt delivery of benefits to the injured worker. § 440.015, Fla. Stat. (2001). Section 440.09(1), Florida Statutes (2001), provides that [t]he employer shall pay compensation or furnish benefits ... if the employee suffers an accidental injury or death arising out of work performed in the course and the scope of employment. (Emphasis supplied.) Section 440.10, Florida Statutes (2001), sets forth the employer's liability for compensation and section 440.11(1) provides that this liability is exclusive and in place of all other liability as to third-party tortfeasors and employees, save for certain legislatively created exceptions. The immunity afforded to the employer under section 440.11(1) also extends to each employee of the employer when such employee is acting in furtherance of the employer's business. However, this coemployee immunity does not apply to an employee who acts, with respect to a fellow employee, with willful and wanton disregard or unprovoked physical aggression or with gross negligence when such acts result in injury or death or such acts proximately cause such injury or death, ... [or] to employees of the same employer when each is operating in the furtherance of the employer's business but they are assigned primarily to unrelated works within private or public employment. § 440.11(1) (emphasis supplied). Thus, if one of these exceptions applies, the injured employee can seek remuneration from a coemployee despite the fact that the injury arose out of the scope of employment. [1] In cases where the employer is a governmental entity such as a county, the coemployee tortfeasor is immune from personal liability for torts under section 768.28(9)(a), Florida Statutes (2005), which requires that any civil action for the employee's negligence be maintained against the governmental entity. Under this provision, any negligence claim arising under the unrelated works exception against a public coemployee must be brought against the governmental entity employer. See Holmes County Sch. Bd. v. Duffell, 651 So.2d 1176, 1179 (Fla.1995); see also Taylor, 888 So.2d at 7 (Lewis, J., concurring in result only) (explaining that a public employee may seek recovery from the otherwise immune employer, because the employer is not being sued in its capacity as employer, but rather is being sued as a surrogate defendant based on the negligent acts of the public co-employee).