The Florida 1st District Court of Appeals recently repealed the 104-week limit on temporary total disability benefits imposed by the state’s workers’ compensation law, overturning amendments legislated in 1994 and reinstating the former limit of 260 weeks.

Employers should note that the decision applies only prospectively.

The lawsuit involved a firefighter who severely injured his back and knee while working. The firefighter was still undergoing surgeries and was incapable of working when he exhausted the 104 weeks of benefits. He filed a claim for permanent total disability but did not qualify because he was still recovering. As a result, he was deprived of disability payments for 9 months before being declared permanently disabled, falling into what the court termed a “legal twilight zone of economic and familial ruin.”

The court found that the gap created by the amended law violated Florida’s constitutional guarantees of access to the courts and the administration of justice without “denial or delay.” In its review, the court noted that most states allow at least 312 weeks of total disability payments, three times the benefit provided to Florida’s injured workers. Among “sister states,” two imposed no limits and none provided fewer than 400 weeks of benefits.

The court concluded that a “system of redress for injury that requires the injured worker to legally forego any and all common law right of recovery for full damages for injury,” and surrender to a system that subjects the worker to “personal ruination to collect his or her remedy,” is “fundamentally flawed and manifestly unjust.”