Prestressed Decking Corp. v. Medrano
Decision Date | 09 June 1989 |
Docket Number | No. 88-1950,88-1950 |
Citation | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1397,545 So.2d 403 |
Parties | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1397 PRESTRESSED DECKING CORP. and Travelers Ins. Co., Appellants, v. Edgardo MEDRANO, Appellee. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Guy A. Gladson, of Gladson & Sullivan, South Miami, for appellants.
Jerold Feuer, Miami, for appellee.
Employer/carrier seek review of a workers' compensation order by which an attorney's fee was awarded. We find that the fee was properly denominated a bad faith award pursuant to section 440.34(3)(b), Florida Statutes, so as to be entirely excluded from recoupment in the carrier's rate base, premium, or rate filing. We further find that the record contains an adequate predicate for the amount of the fee. In the circumstances of this case we find no improper anticipation or prejudgment in the deputy's statement that the amount would be unchanged even should employer/carrier prevail in their separate appeal which challenged a portion of the underlying compensation award. We therefore affirm the order awarding a bad faith attorney's fee.
Claimant sought worker's compensation benefits and a hearing was held after which the deputy entered an order finding that claimant had sustained compensable industrial injuries. Compensation was awarded for permanent total disability, temporary total disability, medical treatment, and attendant care. Indicating that employer/carrier had denied the occurrence of injuries for which compensation was payable, the deputy determined that claimant is entitled to payment of his attorney's fee in accordance with section 440.34(3)(c), Florida Statutes. The deputy reserved jurisdiction as to the amount of the fee, and to further determine whether employer/carrier had acted in bad faith. The compensation order was appealed to this court by employer/carrier upon several issues affecting various benefits, but not challenging the provisions as to the attorney's fee.
A hearing was then held on the issue of bad faith and the amount of claimant's attorney's fee. Employer/carrier stipulated to entitlement to a fee based upon the deputy's earlier order, and argued that the deputy should not consider bad faith because entitlement to a fee was already established. In rejecting this argument the deputy emphasized that a bad faith award is punitive and precludes recoupment in the carrier's rate base as provided in section 440.34(3), Florida Statutes.
Alternative findings of entitlement to an attorney's fee based upon both wrongful controversion and bad faith handling of a claim were approved in Sonesta Beach Hotel v. Hinckley, 483 So.2d 102 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986). Like the deputy in the present case, Sonesta acknowledged that even if a fee is awardable for denying the occurrence of a compensable injury the additional predicate of bad faith is pertinent to the statutory preclusion of rate base recoupment of the fee. Although Sonesta involved alternative findings in a single order, the additional bad faith finding is equally pertinent in sequential proceedings. As was recognized in Holiday Care Center v. Scriven, 418 So.2d 322 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982), both this court and the deputies have a responsibility to hold employers and carriers to the standards imposed upon them by chapter 440 with regard to the handling of worker's compensation claims. Thus, even though entitlement to a fee was already established in the present case, the deputy was entitled to conduct the subsequent bad faith proceeding.
There is sufficient evidence to support the deputy's determination that employer/carrier acted in bad faith in handling the claim, and that claimant thereby suffered economic loss. A bad faith attorney's fee was therefore properly awarded pursuant to section 440.34(3)(b), and in accordance with the statute the deputy correctly noted that carrier may not recoup this fee in its rate base. Such non-recoupment applies to the entire fee, which was based upon all reasonably predictable benefits which flowed from the intervention of claimant's...
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Fumigation Dept. v. Pearson
...This court recently found that a bad faith finding was equally pertinent in a sequential proceeding. Prestressed Decking Corp. v. Medrano, 545 So.2d 403 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989). As noted in Prestressed Decking, "even though entitlement to a fee was already established ... the deputy was entitle......
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Tri-State Motor Transit Co. v. Judy
...for assessing fees; departures from its percentage formula should be made only in exceptional circumstances. Prestressed Decking Corp. v. Medrano, 545 So.2d 403 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989); Fumigation Department v. Pearson, 559 So.2d 587 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989). Accordingly, we find that the JCC did no......