Florida Workers’ Compensation Statute of Limitations Decision – Estes v. Palm Beach County School District

Florida’s Appellate Court Reinterprets the Statute Of Limitations in Workers’ Compensation Cases to Require Carriers to Maintain “Two Clocks” On Every Claim To Successfully Assert Such A Defense.

Estes v. Palm Beach County School Dist., 1D2025-0079, (1st DCA March 23, 2026) (en banc).

Ms. Estes was a teacher who sustained a workplace injury on September 30, 2021 when she tripped and fell at work. The E/C accepted the accident as compensable and paid medical and indemnity benefits from October 21, 2021 – January 6, 2023. In June 2024 some 17 months after receiving her last benefit, Ms. Estes filed a request for a onetime change in orthopedists and requested other benefits. The E/C filed a Notice of Denial based upon the Statute of Limitations defenses. The matter proceeded to the hearing on the Petition, and the JCC upheld the denial of benefits based on the Statute of Limitations defense. The Petition had been filed more than two years after the accident and well over a year since furnishing the last benefit. The JCC concluded that under F.S. 440.19(1) the two-year Statute of Limitations had lapsed and that F.S. 440.19(2) had also lapsed. Ms. Estes was therefore no longer entitled to benefits.

Ms. Estes appealed, arguing that the Statute had been improperly interpreted and, in fact, F.S. 440.19(2) suspended the original two-year Statute of Limitations such that her current Petition fell within the  applicable statutory window and should not have been denied. Because the E/C had provided benefits almost immediately after her injury, those benefits were tolled (suspended or abated) due to F.S.  440.19(1)’s two-year limitation clock. As such, the two-year statute did not begin running again until the expiration of the separate one-year tolling statute which would have been in January 2024. Ms. Estes argued she had nearly all of the original two-year Statute of Limitations still available to her when she filed her Petition in June 2024.

The First District Court of Appeal agreed with Ms. Estes which receded from at least seven prior opinions which interpreted the two statutes as running separately. It had always been interpreted that the two-year statute ran from the date of the accident, and when it was exhausted, it was over. However, an employee could extend that by obtaining benefits and filing a Petition within one year of the last benefit received, regardless of the two-year statute.

This new opinion completely obliterates any previous rulings that the one-year statute was an extension of the two-year Statute of Limitations as opposed to a suspension of that statute. It also complicates employer/carriers determining when an employee may no longer be entitled to benefits based upon the lapse of time. It also means that every time an e/c provides an injured employee with medical or indemnity benefits, the so-called one-year statute starts over which, in turn, extends the two-year statute even further. The decision by the First District Court of Appeal was an en banc decision, meaning the entire court considered it and concurred in the ruling with only two dissents.

The dissenting judges argued that, in fact, the opinion creates a “two clocks” problem every time a request for benefits is submitted. One of the dissenters noted that this decision will require the adjusters, claimants and attorneys to utilize not one but two clocks for every workers’ compensation case. Someone will have to track the number of days for which benefits were not provided to make sure that the adjuster properly determines a Statute of Limitations on the first responsive pleading to a Petition or the defense is waived. Since an adjuster has to respond to the Petition within 14 days of receipt, it will be largely unworkable for the Statute of Limitations to be asserted in a proper manner. It is true that while F.S. 440.19(1) and 440.19(2) may not be the absolute definitions of clarity, they have nevertheless been interpreted a certain way for 26 years and there was no basis to re-interpret the statutes in this case.

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