‘Mental Health Trip’ to NY Not Compensable, Florida Appellate Court Finds

A south Florida FedEx driver, now a quadriplegic after a vehicle crash in 2019, may need constant care and may benefit from a trip to see family members in New York. But the employer and the workers’ compensation insurer should not have to foot the bill for the trip, a Florida appeals court decided last week.

Florida’s 1^st District Court of Appeals, which handles workers’ comp claims appeals, overturned a judge of compensation claims ruling from 2025. The compensation judge, Jack Weiss, found that a family trip, with attendants and extensive medical equipment, was not actually medically necessary. But the employer/carrier should cover the cost because round-the-clock benefits were being provided, anyway, the comp judge said.

In the comp judge’s view, the carrier should cover those costs anywhere, pursuant to “the maxim that industry is responsible for what industry causes,” the appellate court panel explained in the March 18 opinion.

The carrier, Protective Insurance, part of Progressive Insurance, and the employer, Purple Pride Inc., a FedEx company, appealed. The 1^st District Court of Appeals found that the comp judge was in error: Florida compensation law requires employers to furnish only medically necessary treatment. Quality-of-life travel is not authorized.

“This Court has previously distinguished between travel that is medically necessary and travel that merely improves a claimant’s quality of life,” the appellate judges wrote, citing its own appellate rulings from 2015, 1992 and 1982.

The appeals court made the finding despite the claimant’s psychotherapist testifying that the trip was medically necessary in the sense that it could improve the injured worker’s depression and anxiety.

The appeal was handled by two heavyweights in the Florida workers’ compensation legal arena: William Rogner, of HR Law, on the insurer’s side, and Randy Porcher, of the Morgan & Morgan law firm, on the claimant’s side.

The DCA opinion is here. (The opinion title inadvertently refers to the insurer as First Protective Insurance.)

Topics
Florida
New York