The legal dispute focuses on Hialeah Hospital nurse Daniel Stahl, who sustained a major back injury while lifting a patient in December 2003.
Stahl’s situation is just one of three pending Supreme Court cases challenging a previously approved reduction in costs. The cost-cutting – which has been described by industry players and observers as an insurance crisis, and which has been derided as going too far by attorneys representing injured workers – stems from a motion passed by lawmakers in 2003 that eliminated a class of benefits for partial disability.
On November 30, the Supreme Court permitted a joint request from the Florida Insurance Council, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the American Insurance Association, and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, all of which will file on Hialeah Hospital’s behalf.
These groups are the latest of the outside organizations that have been allowed to file briefs as friends-of the-court ever since the Supreme Court approved hearing Stahl’s case. At least 16 groups have already been approved previously.
The Supreme Court has yet to confirm a date for the arguments, according to an online docket.
