Despite the best safety practices implanted con construction jobsites, injuries occasionally occur during construction. If contractors are properly insured with workers’ compensation coverage, all contractors on the job site should be protected from tort liability via horizontal and vertical workers’ compensation immunity. See Fla. Stat. § 440.10(1)(e). Workers’ compensation immunity has been held to be extremely expansive in this context and essentially provides workers’ compensation immunity for all contractors on the jobsite as long as the injured claimant is covered by any contractor’s workers’ compensation policy. See Amorin v. Gordon, 996 So. 2d 913 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (an example of how expansive horizontal and vertical immunity during construction can be).
Continue readingRecently, the First DCA addressed the issue of dual employment as it relates to a contractor and subcontractor. See Roof Painting by Hartzell, Inc./Summit Holdings Claim Center v. Andres Hernandez, Colors Construction, Inc., and Guarantee Insurance Company, 2015 WL 641199, (Fla. 1st DCA 2015). Dual employment occurs when a single employee is under a contract Read More…
Continue readingJudge Jorge E. Cueto, sitting in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, Florida, recently found the Florida Workers’ Compensation Act, as amended effective October 1, 2003, does not provide a “reasonable alternative remedy to the tort remedy it supplanted.” Padgett v. State of Florida, No. 11-13661-CA-25 (view the Padgett opinion). This ruling declares the Read More…
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