Brown v. L.P. Sanitation
| Decision Date | 07 February 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 96-1171,96-1171 |
| Parties | 22 Fla. L. Weekly D375 Rufus BROWN, Jr., Appellant, v. L.P. SANITATION and CNA Insurance Company, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Joseph D. Lee of Joseph D. Lee, P.A., West Palm Beach, for Appellant.
H. George Kagan and Elliot B. Kula of Miller, Kagan, Rodriguez & Silver, P.A., West Palm Beach, for Appellees.
Rufus Brown, Jr. contends that a final compensation order should be reversed to the extent it approves a temporary twenty percent reduction in his biweekly compensation payments. The order authorizes deductions for as long as necessary to recover overpayments Mr. Brown's former employer or its insurance carrier made after January 1, 1994. We affirm.
We adopt as our own the ruling the judge of compensation claims made on this point in the final compensation order:
17. As to the issue regarding section 440.15(13), Florida Statutes (Supp.1994), I find this section overrules the judicially created evidentiary presumption that an overpayment of compensation is presumed a gratuity unless a reasonable basis exists for the overpayment. Section 440.15(13) requires repayment of all indemnity benefits received by an employee, "to which [the employee] is not entitled...." This section provides:
(13) REPAYMENT.-If an employee has received a sum as an indemnity benefit under any classification or category of benefit under this chapter to which he is not entitled, the employee is liable to repay that sum to the employer or the carrier or to have that sum deducted from future benefits, regardless of the classification of benefits, payable to the employee under this chapter; however, a partial payment of the total repayment may not exceed 20 percent of the amount of the biweekly payment.
It is uncontradicted the Employer/Carrier were entitled to take a social security offset from the Claimant's compensation benefits as early as September of 1992, when the Claimant began receiving social security benefits. It is also uncontradicted the Employer/Carrier are currently deducting an amount from Claimant's bi-weekly compensation benefits reflecting the overpayment of social security benefits between January of 1994 and August of 1994, only. They do not seek reimbursement for overpayment of benefits prior to January of 1994.
18. I find section 440.15(13), Florida Statutes (Supp.1994) is a procedural enactment because it affects a burden of proof or mode of procedure, and therefore is applicable to the Claimant's date of accident. This section allows the Employer/Carrier's deduction of 20% of the amount of his biweekly compensation payment.
(Brackets in original.) As the order recites, the fact of the overpayments is not in dispute and there is no question as to the amount.
At one time, the cases held that an unexplained overpayment of workers' compensation benefits should be presumed to have been an irrevocable gift to the employee who received the overpayment. Strickland v. Neil's Painting, 545 So.2d 333 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989); Pardo v. Sun Supermarket, 510 So.2d 1244 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987).
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