$1.53 an hour for lawyer fees? Not in Florida, court says

TALLAHASSEE,FLA.>> The Florida Supreme Court struck down a law limiting lawyer fees in workers’ compensation cases on Thursday, saying the $1.53 hourly rate a lawyer was paid to help an injured worker was “absurdly low.”

The decision is a victory for injured workers who have struggled to get lawyers to help them because the fee system created by then-Gov. Jeb Bush in 2003 makes their cases not worth representing. The case involved a man who successfully sued a Miami door manufacturer over an on-the-job injury. His lawyer was paid $164.54 for more than 100 hours of work.

The Supreme Court said the fee limits are unconstitutional because they resulted in a system where people can’t find lawyers to represent them at unreasonably low rates. The law based lawyer fees on a percentage of the amount of money won in a claim, so if an injured worker had a $5,000 claim, lawyers knew that they could receive no more than $1,000.

So while the $5,000 could be important to someone earning $10 an hour and trying to pay bills, lawyers don’t want to take cases where their fee is driving down to the equivalent of $10 an hour or less, said Michael Winer, who chairs the Workers Compensation Section of The Florida Bar.

“People who were injured on the job and stuck in the workers’ comp system lost the ability to pay lawyers,” he said. “I have had very difficult discussions with a lot of injured workers who had valid claims, and said, ‘Look, the juice here, unfortunately, just isn’t worth the squeeze. I might have to spend 50 to 70 hours on your case.’”

It also led to insurance companies denying legitimate claims knowing that injured workers wouldn’t be able to fight the decision, Winer said.

“They deny the claim, and if the claimant can’t get a lawyer, he goes away and he makes it somebody else’s problem. That problem might be Medicaid’s problem, that problem might be a county hospital that never gets reimbursed,” Winer said. “It’s the grand passing of the buck.”

Business groups immediately criticized the decision, saying it’s going to drive up employers’ costs.