Miami · Miami-Dade County

Miami Workers Compensation Lawyer

You were hurt doing your job, and now the checks are late, the doctor is chosen for you, and somebody is hinting you could come back early. We can take it from here. Call 844-643-7200 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Miami personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Miami-Dade County since 1993.

Speak to a Lawyer How these cases work

2 years To file a petition for benefits.

Third party claims Run alongside comp and pay far more.

No fee unless we win Free case review, and nothing to pay to start.

Miami-Dade County Our Miami office takes these claims anywhere in the county.

In Miami-Dade County

Workers Compensation claims in Miami

The carrier picks the doctor, decides what is covered, and can stop your checks while you wait. Meanwhile the rent is due, the light duty you were promised does not exist, and nobody has mentioned that somebody other than your employer may also owe you. Sorting out both claims is what we do, from the first call.

Most of the workplace injuries we see in Miami-Dade come off construction sites, warehouse floors and airport cargo operations, and those are exactly the settings where somebody other than the employer is responsible. Comp is the exclusive remedy against an employer, but it does not touch a negligent subcontractor, an equipment manufacturer, a property owner or a driver. That third-party claim covers what comp never does, including pain and suffering, and it is frequently the larger of the two. Running them together matters, because the comp carrier will assert a lien against the recovery and the size of that lien is negotiable.

Short answer

A Miami-Dade compensation claim pays authorized medical care and a portion of lost wages regardless of fault, and it is generally the only claim against your own employer. Where another company caused the injury, a separate negligence claim runs alongside it and pays for pain, which compensation does not. Report the injury to your employer promptly and in writing.

What to do after a workers compensation in Miami

Report it to your employer, in writing, and keep the message. Florida gives an injured worker a short window to report a workplace injury, counted from the day of the accident rather than from the day it turned serious. Tell a supervisor, then send a text or an email the same day so the date is fixed. A late report is the most common reason a carrier denies a claim, and a message sent that afternoon closes the argument before it starts.
Say the words “this happened at work” at every medical visit. Not once, and not only to the first person who asks. The chart is what connects the injury to the job, and a record that describes a shoulder problem without saying how it started is the single most useful document a carrier can be handed. If you go to an emergency room before anything is authorized, say it there too.
Go to the authorized doctor, even if you would rather not. The employer and its insurer choose the treating physician, which is a real constraint rather than a suggestion, and missing appointments with that doctor damages a claim quickly. You do have one change of physician during the claim. It is worth understanding how that works before using it, because it can only be spent once.
Keep your own record alongside theirs. Dates of appointments, what you were told, what work restrictions were written, mileage to and from treatment, and every letter that arrives. Claims are decided months later on paperwork, and the worker who kept a simple diary is in a far better position than the one relying on memory and on a file held by the other side.
Ask before you accept anything called a settlement. A lump sum in a comp claim usually closes future medical care as well as wage benefits, permanently. That can be the right decision and it is frequently made without anybody explaining what is being given up, or what happens to the money if Medicare has an interest in it. There is no cost to having the numbers looked at first.

Where these happen in Miami

Miami-Dade’s injured workers come off construction sites, airport cargo floors, warehouses and restaurant kitchens, and those are precisely the settings where the company that caused the injury is not the company that employs you.

Sites with several employers on them

Construction, cargo and any operation where separate companies work the same space, which is where the second claim comes from.
- The employer of record, which is who compensation runs against and who cannot be sued
- Every other company present, none of which is protected by that immunity
- Equipment owned or maintained by somebody other than the employer
- Contracts and site records, which establish who controlled what and we can get
Airport cargo and ramp work

Heavy, repetitive, and done under a schedule that treats delay as the only real failure.
- Lifting and repetitive injuries developing over months rather than on a date
- Struck-by injuries on a ramp where ground handling, fueling and catering are separate employers
- Shift and staffing records documenting the pace the claim will be disputed on
- Injuries reported late because a worker kept going, which is the carrier’s main argument
Restaurants, hotels and kitchens

A very large employer group in this county, with a workforce that frequently does not know what it is entitled to.
- Burns, cuts and falls on wet floors, often unreported until a week later
- Cumulative shoulder and back injuries from carrying and cleaning
- Staffing agency employment, where the employer of record is not the business giving instructions
- Cash and informal arrangements, which do not remove the right to a claim
The language the claim is conducted in

A great many workers here are more comfortable in Spanish or Creole, and every stage of a compensation claim is paperwork.
- A recorded statement taken in a second language, which is worth reviewing against what was actually said
- Forms, notices and authorizations issued in English on short deadlines
- What was reported to a supervisor, in which language, and whether it was written down
- Medical appointments where nobody interpreted, which is where causation goes missing from a chart

What causes them

Lifting, pulling and repeated bending, which is where most back and shoulder claims begin
Repetitive motion over months, including carpal tunnel and rotator cuff injuries that have no single accident behind them
Being struck by equipment, vehicles or falling material on a work site
Machinery injuries, including caught-in and crushing injuries to hands and arms
Motor vehicle collisions while driving for work, which produce a compensation claim and a separate claim against the other driver

The injuries we see, and what each one turns on

Shoulders and knees

Rotator cuff and meniscus injuries, which usually need imaging that a carrier is slow to authorize and then surgery it is slower still to approve. The delay itself becomes an issue, because a worker who has waited eight months for an operation has a longer recovery and a weaker outcome than one who had it at eight weeks.

Injuries that developed rather than happened

Carpal tunnel, tendonitis and hearing loss have no accident date, which is exactly what makes them difficult. They are compensable, and the reporting clock generally runs from when the worker knew or should have known the condition was work-related rather than from the first symptom. Getting that date right at the outset matters more than almost anything else in these claims.

Hernias and internal injuries

Frequently reported late because the worker keeps going, which is the position the carrier then argues from. The medical record is what saves these claims, provided somebody said at the time that it happened at work.

What Florida law requires you to prove

Major contributing cause, which is the phrase the system turns on

Florida does not simply ask whether work contributed to an injury. Under Fla. Stat. § 440.09 the workplace accident has to be the major contributing cause of the injury and of the need for treatment, judged against all other causes combined. It is the provision behind most denials, and it is why a carrier goes looking for a prior injury, an old scan or a weekend activity before it decides anything.

What the benefits are, and what they are not

Compensation pays authorized medical care and a portion of lost wages regardless of who was at fault, and in exchange it is generally the exclusive remedy against your own employer under Fla. Stat. § 440.11. Wage benefits under Fla. Stat. § 440.15 are a fraction of the average weekly wage rather than the whole, temporary benefits are capped in duration, and impairment benefits after maximum medical improvement are set by a rating rather than by what the injury cost you. Nothing in the system pays for pain, and nothing pays the difference between two thirds of a wage and the rent.

The doctor, the deadlines, and what happens when a claim is denied

The employer and carrier authorize the treating physician under Fla. Stat. § 440.13, which also gives an injured worker one change of physician during the claim, requested in writing, with the carrier then selecting the replacement. The injury has to be reported to the employer promptly under Fla. Stat. § 440.185. A denial is not the end: a petition for benefits goes to a judge of compensation claims, mediation comes first, and the process is designed to be used rather than admired.

The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide workers compensation page rather than being restated in every market.

How we prove it in Miami-Dade County

Two files are being built at once in a Miami-Dade case: the compensation claim, which turns on the medical record, and the claim against everybody else, which turns on the site.

What we go after, and when

The written report of the injury and the date it was made
The complete medical record, including the first visit, and a physician who addresses causation directly
The employer of record, particularly where a staffing agency or a labor leasing company is involved
Every other company at the location, and the contracts establishing who controlled what
Equipment ownership and maintenance records where a machine or vehicle was involved
Shift, staffing and productivity records for the period in question
Interpreter and translation records where the report or a statement was taken in a second language
Prior medical records, which generally help by establishing what you could do before

The second claim is the one nobody mentions to an injured worker, and it is the one that pays for pain and for the full wage loss. It has its own and shorter deadline than the compensation claim, so it is identified early rather than discovered late.

A setting a workers compensation claim in Miami typically arises from

Who would handle your case

Being hurt in Miami is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled workers compensation claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.

How insurance companies handle these claims

A compensation carrier is not deciding whether to pay. It is deciding how much and for how long, and almost every step below is aimed at one of those two questions rather than at whether you were hurt.

The authorized doctor puts you at maximum medical improvement: That date changes everything: temporary wage benefits stop, an impairment rating gets assigned, and the claim moves from treatment to numbers. It arrives sooner than most workers expect and sometimes sooner than the treatment justifies. It is challengeable, and the one change of physician is worth saving for exactly this moment rather than spending early out of frustration.
A nurse case manager comes to your appointments: They are paid by the carrier and they are frequently helpful with scheduling and authorizations. What they are not is neutral, and what happens in the examination room gets reported. You are generally entitled to speak with the physician privately about your own medical care, and asking for that is not rude.
An independent medical examination is arranged: A one-off appointment with a physician chosen and paid by the carrier, who will not treat you and whose report is written for the file. Go, be accurate, and do not perform: describe a bad day and a good day honestly. Overstating is the single most damaging thing a worker can do at that appointment, and understating is nearly as bad.

What a claim can include

Wage benefits while you cannot work

A fraction of the average weekly wage rather than the whole, paid while a physician has you off work or on restrictions the employer cannot accommodate. The duration of temporary benefits is capped by statute.

Impairment benefits after maximum medical improvement

Paid according to a rating assigned by the physician once treatment has plateaued. The rating drives the number, which is why the date of maximum medical improvement and the rating itself are both worth examining rather than accepting.

Permanent total disability

Where the injury prevents any meaningful return to work at all. It is a separate and much larger category with its own requirements, and carriers resist it accordingly.

Another setting a workers compensation claim in Miami arises from

Why Wolf & Pravato in Miami

The firm has an office on Brickell Avenue and works with clients in Spanish and English, which in this practice is part of the evidence rather than a courtesy. Compensation claims are heard by a judge of compensation claims, and where a third party is responsible that case is filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit and runs alongside it.

The firm is led by a Board Certified Civil Trial lawyer, a certification held by 861 attorneys in Florida against a membership over 109,000. Insurance companies keep their own records of which firms in a county actually try cases, and that record moves an offer further than anything a firm can say about itself.

There is no charge to ask. Our fee comes out of what we recover and nowhere else, and if the answer is that you do not have a case, that is the answer you will get.

Call 844-643-7200 Free consultation. No fee unless we win.

Questions

Miami workers compensation questions

Can I bring a claim against someone other than my employer?

Yes, when someone else caused the injury. A subcontractor on the same site, a property owner, a driver, an equipment manufacturer: none of them are protected by the exclusive remedy that shields your employer. That case runs alongside the compensation claim and covers pain and suffering, which compensation does not pay at all. Reporting the injury to your employer promptly is what protects the first claim while the second is investigated.

I do not have papers. Can I claim compensation?

Florida’s statute defines an employee to include workers whether they are lawfully employed or not, and a negligence claim against another company does not turn on immigration status either. Workers are told the opposite constantly. One thing is genuinely worth care: anything to do with documents given to an employer should be raised with a lawyer before it is raised with anybody else.

My statement was taken in English and I did not follow all of it.

That is worth examining rather than accepting. What you said, what you meant and what the transcript records are three different things, and a gap between them gets used months later on causation. Ask for a copy of anything you signed or gave, and bring it in. We would rather read the document than hear a summary of it.

My claim was denied. What now?

A denial is not the end. You file a Petition for Benefits with the Office of the Judges of Compensation Claims, and there is a two-year deadline from the date of injury to do it. Denials are frequently reversed, and the reasons given are often procedural rather than substantive.

Do I have to use the doctor my employer chose?

Within the comp system, treatment generally has to be authorized, and the carrier directs care. There are procedures for requesting a change of physician, and they have their own timing requirements. This is one of the areas where an unrepresented worker most often loses ground without realizing it.

The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.

Tell us what happened

A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 1111 Brickell Avenue, 11th Floor, Miami, FL 33131.

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