Top Florida court strikes down attorney fee schedule for Workers' Comp cases

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.