Florida Law Officers Want Change to Workers’ Comp PTSD Law

Three years after first responders in Florida won a hard-fought victory to make mental stress a compensable condition, officers now hope lawmakers can tweak the law to correct some problems.

The Florida Police Chiefs Association leaders and law officers from around the state spoke at a legislative hearing last week. They pointed out that the 2018 law gives first responders just a year after a specific incident to file a workers’ compensation claim for post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s an arbitrary time limit that just doesn’t make any sense,” Clearwater Police Chief Daniel Slaughter told a TV news station. “The officers, they may start showing symptoms later on in their career or there may be an accumulative effect of multiple events and right now the current legislation doesn’t do that.”

Officers heralded the passage of the 2018 law, which was championed by state fire marshal and Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis. It made PTSD a compensable condition for the first time. Some 36 states have now made the mental condition an injury that is eligible for compensation for most first responders.

Critics have said that Florida’s law, like those in many states, requires officers to link the stress to a specific trauma or incident that they witnessed. They then have 52 weeks to file a claim. Some states allow cumulative trauma to trigger a comp claim.

“The nature of PTSD, the science shows that you don’t know when those symptoms are going to manifest themselves,” Slaughter said.

Some 11 Florida law officers died by suicide in 2020, according to bluehelp.org, which offers assistance to police officers. Advocates hope a change in the law will help provide first responders with needed treatment and paid time off.

Slaughter said at the Florida House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee that the association also hopes to amend the law to allow psychologists, not just psychiatrists, to diagnose PTSD in officers.

Topics Florida Workers' Compensation