eVeRyThingoldisnewagain
Workers’ Compensation Section Co-Chairs: AnthonyCortese – AnthonyV. Cortese, AttorneyatLaw & Ya’ SheakaWilliams – Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer
Thisdecisionreverses existingcaselawand raisesmanyquestions.
In an En Banc decision, Estes v. Palm Beach County School District, No. 1D2025-0079( Fla. 1 DCA, March 23, 2026), the First District Court of Appeal reversed a long-standing statute of limitations interpretation, gave a complicated explanation for the new rule, debated the new rule against two long, critical dissents, and“ set aside” the order of the Judge of Compensation Claims instead of reversing and remanding. Every practitioner in the field should read the decision carefully, not only for the direct ruling but also for all the dicta indicating future application.
The underlying issue was interpretation of the statute of limitations in provisions that had been adopted in 1993 and interpreted in the same manner for the 30 years since. The initial part of the statute is that a claim for workers’ compensation benefits must be filed within two years of the date of injury. The second part“ tolled” the time for filing a petition for benefits by one year each time the Claimant received benefits, which Courts have interpreted as a one-year extension in many previous decisions, cited
by the majority from Orange County Sch. Bd. v. Best, 728 So. Ed 1186( Fla. 1st DCA 1999), to Sanchez v. Am. Airlines, 169 So. 3d 1197, 1198( Fla. 1st DCA 2015).
In Estes, the Claimant was injured on September 30, 2021, and received benefits until January 26, 2023, and waited 17 months until June 2024 to file a petition for additional benefits. The Judge held that the claim was barred because the statute of limitation expired on January 26, 2024, in accord with prior appellate decisions. There was no dispute that the petition for benefits was filed more than two years from the date of injury and more than a year after the last benefits were provided, and the Judge ruled that, based on existing law, the statute of limitations barred the claim. The majority opinion, joined by eight other Justices, held that over thirty years of precedent was wrong. Because the statute provides that the provision of benefits“ tolls” the statute of limitations, instead of saying that it“ extends” the statute of limitations, the majority held that the two-year statute restarted each time benefits were provided,
and then only after a one-year extension was applied. By putting together the one-year extension with the two-year period that had been tolled, the First District held that the statute of limitations for Estes that the Trial Judge held expired on January 23, 2024,“ wouldn’ t have expired until January 2026, under these facts.” Id. at 13.
There are a myriad of related issues that the majority and dissents debate, particularly the issue of how the issue of compensability affects this new statute of limitations paradigm. An appellate procedural issue raised is that the majority elected to“ set aside” the decision of the Judge rather than reversing and remanding his decision, an approach that the dissent asserts is an incorrect trend that began in Ortiz v. Winn Dixie, 402 So. 301, 311 n. 7( Fla. 1st 2024). This decision reverses longstanding caselaw and raises many questions for the future, reflecting a belief that“ the law is a living breathing entity” that evolves with time. n
Author: Anthony V. Cortese – Anthony V. Cortese, Attorney at Law
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