An Appeal has been filed with the First District Court of Appeals challenging the Constitutionality of the draconian fee provisions passed by the State legislators corrupted by the Insurance Companies. The Special Interests who dictate to the politicians seem hellbent on destroying the Constitutional rights of the weakest members of society. The Special Interests are terrified of workers having a level playing field against employers and insurance companies.
Under the current law, insurance companies can spend an unlimited amount of money defending every claim, unfettered by statutory limitations. Unfortunately, the same Employers & Insurance companies wrote the law that their lapdogs in the Legislature passed verbatim. The law severely limits injured workers’ rights, including limiting workers’ Access to courts and violating the Separation of Powers by putting caps on what Judges can award in fees to workers’ lawyers.
Although the District Court of Appeals deferred on our Motion to certify our appeal to the Supreme Court, we are hopeful it will be sent up once the panel reviews the Motion. It only takes one panel of Judges to have the requisite character and courage to stand up for their own powers to strike down bad laws passed by a corrupt legislature.
There has been a steady erosion of workers’ rights under the Special Interest rule. However, during a recent Oral Argument in the Castellanos case, it appeared that Judge Padavano had enough vision to see the hypocrisy of allowing Insurance Companies to wage a war of attrition against injured workers. Florida is hopeful that the panel in Castellanos has enough guts to certify the question to the Supreme Court of Florida and not rollover in the face of the Legislature’s over reach.
If the Court has the courage to certify in Castellanos, Floridians’ confidence may get restored. Ever since the resignation of the 1st DCA’s Chief Judge while under investigation of a complaint of bias, the 1st DCA’s image has suffered. Striking a blow for fairness in the Workers Compensation Court system would go a long way to restoring the reputation of all Courts.
