Farm v. Ferrell, AX-370
| Decision Date | 26 October 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. AX-370,AX-370 |
| Citation | 458 So.2d 1147 |
| Parties | Bonnie Heath FARM and the Hartford, Appellants, v. Franklin FERRELL, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Jack A. Langdon of Jones & Langdon, Gainesville, for appellants.
Daniel L. Hightower of Green, Simmons, Green, Hightower & Gray, Ocala, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a workers' compensation order of February 15, 1984, awarding payment under Chapter 440, Florida Statutes, for nursing services to claimant's wife at the rate of $3.35 per hour, eight hours per day, seven days a week, retroactive to January 23, 1976. Claimant was accepted as permanently totally disabled by the appellant carrier in 1976, and the parties then stipulated to a fee for nursing services "from the date of accident [2/20/75] to the date she was married to the Claimant" on January 23, 1976, with provision for a new claim in event of further entitlement. Three hours' daily care had been voluntarily authorized as of May 2, 1983, and appellants challenge the order granting five additional daily hours' care from that date as well as the entire award for earlier years. We affirm.
The record is replete with both expert and lay testimony as to claimant's need for medical monitoring and assistance with basic personal activity, including his repeated incidents of drug overdose before and after the initial payment for nursing services, supra. Based on the stipulated termination date, coinciding with claimant's marriage to the provider of such service, appellants "suggest that the only conclusion to be drawn from that agreement and order is that all the parties recognize that once she married the claimant she was excluded from payment for her services because the services were of the type that fall within the gratuitous presumption when performed by a spouse." We find no such inference in this case. 1 Even the current statute, § 440.13(2)(d), Florida Statutes, as amended in 1983 to codify the earlier decisional rule, clearly contemplates compensation for family members who render nonprofessional custodial care except "when the services they provide do not go beyond those which are normally provided by family members gratuitously." The deputy in this case properly concluded that the evidence before him substantiated payment for services of the nature and duration awarded, because they were required by claimant's injury and therefore were not such...
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Jackson Manor Nursing Home v. Ortiz
...of section 440.13 to burden family members with medically required nursing services and unskilled attendant care ..."); Farm v. Ferrell, 458 So.2d 1147 (Fla. 1st DCA1984) (attendant care approved based upon record evidence of claimant's need for medical monitoring and assistance with basic ......
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Kraft Dairy Group v. Cohen
...payable to Mrs. Cohen is not restricted by the statute because she is a CNA is also somewhat bolstered by a note in Farm v. Ferrell, 458 So.2d 1147 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), where the court noted that appellee argued persuasively that it may be discriminatory to presume that after the claimant's......
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Honeycutt v. R.G. Butlers Dairy, 87-467
...at the time of Honeycutt's injury, Section 440.13(1), Florida Statutes (1979), should control. However, in Bonnie Heath Farms v. Ferrell, 458 So.2d 1147 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), this court affirmed a 1984 compensation order awarding attendant care services retroactively to 23 January 1976. In d......
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Kraft Dairy Group v. Sorge, BN-57
...they provide do not go beyond those which are normally provided by family members on a gratuitous basis. Bonnie Health Farm v. Ferrell, 458 So.2d 1147 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), indicates that this statutory amendment merely codifies the existing decisional rule, and contemplates compensation for......