The Florida Supreme Court has struck down, as unconstitutional on due process grounds, the mandatory fee schedule in Section 440.34, Florida Statutes (2009), finding that it eliminated the requirement of a reasonable attorneys' fee to a successful workers' compensation claimant.
The court reasoned that, considering that the right of a claimant to obtain a reasonable attorneys' fee has been a critical feature of the Workers' Compensation law, the mandatory fee schedule in Section 440.34, which created an irrebuttable presumption that precluded any consideration of whether the fee award was reasonable to compensate the attorney, was unconstitutional under both the Florida and U.S. Constitutions as a violation of due process.
|The case
Marvin Castellanos was injured during the course of his employment with the Next Door Co. Through the assistance of an attorney, Castellanos prevailed in his workers' compensation claim.
Because Section 440.34 limits a claimant's ability to recover attorneys' fees to a sliding scale based on the amount of workers' compensation benefits obtained, the fee awarded to Castellanos' attorney amounted to only $1.53 per hour for 107.2 hours of work determined by the Judge of Compensation Claims (JCC) to be “reasonable and necessary” in litigating Castellanos' case.
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
