Winkel v. Grand Union Stores

• Decision Date: 16 August 1983
• Docket Number: No. AP-361,AP-361
• Citation: 436 So.2d 351
• Parties: Patricia Ann WINKEL, Appellant, v. GRAND UNION STORES and Crawford and Company, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 351

436 So.2d 351

Patricia Ann WINKEL, Appellant, v. GRAND UNION STORES and Crawford and Company, Appellees.

No. AP-361.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Aug. 16, 1983.

Pam Fleischmann, of Kaplan, Sicking, Hessen, Sugarman, Rosenthal & De Castro, Miami, for appellant.

Guy A. Gladson, of Gladson & Sullivan, Miami, for appellees.

WENTWORTH, Judge.

The claimant in this workers' compensation case appeals an order of the deputy commissioner denying her claim for temporary benefits. The order reserved jurisdiction to determine claimant's entitlement to wage loss benefits after finding that claimant had reached maximum medical improvement (MMI) prior to the hearing. Thus, the order would appear facially to be non-final and non-appealable because it did not dispose of all pending claims. Crown Hotel v. Friedman, 420 So.2d 418 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982). However, because of circumstances in this case explained more fully below, we find that the issue of wage loss entitlement was not mature at the time of the hearing, and we therefore review and affirm the order on temporary benefits as a final disposition of all claims which were or should properly have been presented at that time.

Workers' compensation cases are, of course, often resolved piecemeal, resulting in successive, appealable orders. An order awarding or denying temporary benefits, entered prior to the date of MMI, would ordinarily be final and appealable by the adversely affected party. If, however, other benefits are due and could have been claimed at the time of the hearing, then all issues with respect thereto must be raised or they will be barred, unless reserved in some fashion identifying the order as interim and not final. See Hunt v. International Minerals and Chemical Corp., 410 So.2d 640 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982). The question in this case is whether the claim for wage loss had matured, so that its reservation in the order would make that order non-final.

At the hearing on September 17, 1982, the claimant's attorney sought to include a claim for wage loss benefits because the parties had then stipulated that August 9, 1982, was the MMI date. The attorney explained that the parties had become aware of that date during the deposition of claimant's treating physician, taken on September 14, 1982, three days before the hearing. The carrier's attorney objected to the claim for wage loss on the grounds that there was no formal claim pending, and the deputy correctly sustained the objection in view of the time and notice constraints. The deputy re-affirmed this ruling in his order of October 22, 1982. He therefore determined only the...