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The Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims 2020 Annual Report has been published. There are various topics therein that may be of interest to the community. One about which there is frequent inquiry is the filing volumes: "are petitions increasing?" "is the petition volume new cases or old?"
There has been significant fluctuation in the petition filing rates over the years. Florida has used the "petition" paradigm since 1994. Prior to that, issues were raised in a "claim" form, which could be filed as a notification. The jurisdiction of this Office, however, was not invoked with that. After such a claim, a party could then file the jurisdictional pleading, an "Application for Hearing." Thus, "claims "sometimes remained on file for years without any forward progress.
When the new petition process was instigated in 1994, it was part of a major re-write of the Florida Workers' Compensation Law. The extensive revisions were made in a special legislative session. One of the purposes of the 1993 special session was to alleviate necessity of litigation. In 1995-95 41,526 petitions were filed; the volume steadily increased each year, except 1999-00, through 2002-03. In 2002-03 the volume filed was 151,021. One might characterize the effort at decreasing litigation as unsuccessful.
Thereafter, likely related in part to the 2003 statutory amendments, petition filings decreased as steadily through 2012-13. That year, a the trend reversed and increase began. That trend continued until 2019-20. Some are surprised that the petition filing that year was 72,086, a 1.4% decrease from the year before. The "new case" volume similarly dropped about 1.6%. It is notable that the two decreases were so similar.
Some question why the trend is reversing. After reasonably stable tendencies toward increase since 2012-13 (except 2017-18 which demonstrated a minor change downward of 70 petitions), why would the trend change in 2019-20. It is likely attributable to the pandemic, COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2. This chart illustrates several points.
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About The Author
About The Author
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Judge David Langham
David Langham is the Deputy Chief Judge of Compensation Claims for the Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims at the Division of Administrative Hearings. He has been involved in workers’ compensation for over 25 years as an attorney, an adjudicator, and administrator. He has delivered hundreds of professional lectures, published numerous articles on workers’ compensation in a variety of publications, and is a frequent blogger on Florida Workers’ Compensation Adjudication. David is a founding director of the National Association of Workers’ Compensation Judiciary and the Professional Mediation Institute, and is involved in the Southern Association of Workers’ Compensation Administrators (SAWCA) and the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions (IAIABC). He is a vocal advocate of leveraging technology and modernizing the dispute resolution processes of workers’ compensation.
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