Statute of Limitations on Workers' Compensation Filings in Florida

When you suffer an injury while completing a work-related task in Florida, you should be able to file for workers’ compensation, assuming your employer is legally required to purchase workers’ compensation insurance and you qualify under their policy. What happens if you are severely incapacitated from your injury and cannot make a claim right away? What happens if the stress of the situation in general makes you forget to file for your deserved benefits as an injured employee? How much time do you have to create and file your claim?

According to Florida’s workers’ compensation laws — Section 440.19 — an injured worker has two years after a work-related injury to file for workers’ compensation benefits. If two years transpire and no claim is filed, the state’s statute of limitations will expire. A responding insurance company can ask a court to dismiss any claim filed beyond the statute of limitation’s expiration date, which effectively lets them automatically deny any such claim.

Florida also has a secondary statute of limitations to consider for workers’ compensation claims. If the injured employee receives financial benefits or medical treatments but those benefits end without fulfilling all medical treatments needed or employer obligations, the injured employee will have one year since the final “payment of compensation or provision of medical treatment, care, or attention” to file a claim.

The two-year statute of limitation also does not always begin on the date of injury. As with personal injury claims, the statute begins when the injured worker should have reasonably known they were injured. For example, some injuries may be initially quite subtle and seem like something that could be safely ignored, until they emerge as a serious problem sometime later. In such cases, the statute of limitations for the injured employee’s claim would not start until the injury or illness actually began causing noticeable harm.

All the Guidance You Need From One Law Firm

Are you worried about filing a workers’ compensation claim, for fear of being denied or not given enough benefits? You can come to Touby, Chait & Sicking, PL for guidance from a team of Miami workers’ compensation lawyers with 100+ years of collective legal experience. We proudly protect the rights of injured workers by helping them create, file, and fight for their claims in and out of court.

To begin your workers’ comp claim in Florida with confidence, call us at (305) 257-9472 today.

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