Fla. Workers’ Comp Ruling Ups Bar For Emotional Injury Suits

Workers’ compensation statutes throughout the U.S. have long shielded employers from lawsuits for workplace injuries when sick or injured employers do not first unsuccessfully seek workers’ compensation benefits. Many states also protect employers from paying workers’ compensation benefits for emotional distress or purely psychological injuries.

And although some states have codified exceptions — for example, for post-traumatic stress suffered by first responders — at least 10 states prohibit workers’ compensation benefits for emotional injuries unless they are caused or accompanied by physical injuries.[1]

Workers in some of those states have construed these provisions as a green light to forgo the workers’ compensation system altogether by filing suits against their employers for purely emotional workplace injuries without first seeking workers’ compensation. But, in Steak ‘N Shake Inc. v. Spears, a June 13 opinion construing a matter of first impression, a Florida appellate court expressly barred this practice.

The ruling requires that even employees with emotional-distress-only claims that they believe are barred under Florida’s workers’ compensation laws seek workers’ compensation benefits before pursuing relief for such injuries from their employers in the courts.

The decision makes clear that employees injured in Florida may not sidestep workers’ compensation laws by using litigation as a way to attempt to require employers to pay for injuries the Legislature has chosen to shield them from paying.

According to the opinion in Steak ‘N Shake v. Spears, the employee had been held at gunpoint and was forced into a backroom of her employer’s restaurant under threat of death. Although she was grabbed by her neck and shoulder by the perpetrator, she never sought medical attention and claimed she had never suffered physical injuries. She filed a civil suit against her employer for those emotional injuries without first filing a claim for workers’ compensation.

Under Florida’s workers’ compensation statute, an employee may not recover benefits “for mental or nervous injuries without an accompanying physical injury requiring medical treatment.” Further, the law states: “A physical injury resulting from mental or nervous injuries unaccompanied by physical trauma requiring medical treatment shall not be compensable under this chapter.”[2]

When Steak N’ Shake sought to dispose of the case based upon workers’ compensation immunity, the 18th Judicial Circuit refused and permitted the lawsuit to proceed based upon this exclusion by holding that the employee’s emotional injuries were “outside the statutory workers compensation framework.” But on appeal, Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed and held that the employee could not sidestep the protections afforded to employers by workers’ compensation laws by filing suit against her employer before first seeking and being denied workers’ compensation benefits.[3]

In its opinion, the court began by recognizing that compensation for all workplace injuries is governed by Florida’s workers’ compensation statutes, and to recover for such injuries, “[c]laimants must first seek remedial relief within the workers compensation system, rather than filing a civil tort claim in a Florida court.” The court then focused on the statutory definition of “compensable,” which permits the determination of whether a claim is compensable to be made only “by a carrier or judge of compensation claims.”

According to the court’s opinion, “Claimants may not unilaterally determine that their claims are not compensable in the workers compensation system and sue their employers; the whole point of the workers compensation system is to avoid piecemeal litigation in state courts and, instead, have one unified compensation system.”

The Florida appellate court further stressed, “It is a matter of due process as well because carriers are statutorily required to receive and evaluate claims in the first instance; going directly to a Florida circuit court without allowing carriers to perform their statutory role is not what the workers compensation laws envisioned.”

The Steak N’ Shake ruling therefore closes a potential loophole that might otherwise be used by employees to recover compensation for workplace injuries that a state has deemed unpayable by seeking an award of such damages from a sympathetic jury.

Workers’ compensation laws were enacted to ensure that injured workers receive payment for compensable workplace injuries through an employer’s procurement of workers’ compensation insurance, and that those employees be relieved from having to incur the expense and delay of filing a lawsuit to recover such compensation. But those laws provide an equally important role in protecting employers and overburdened courts from lawsuits to recover compensation that a state has determined to not be employers’ burden.

The decision also reduces the risk that Florida courts will be unnecessarily asked to resolve such disputes if an employee’s belief that their damages are not compensable is mistaken. The court noted in the Steak N’ Shake ruling that the employee “was physically touched by the robber” when held at gunpoint, such that a carrier or judge of compensation claims might have deemed her injuries compensable.

Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal confirmed that carriers and the judicial branch tasked with resolving disputes over their determinations should be afforded the opportunity to resolve such questions before employers are forced to defend such claims in court.

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By Rob Rogers

Rob Rogers is an associate at Kirwin Norris PA.

The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employer, its clients, or Portfolio Media Inc., or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

[1] See https://www.atticus.com/advice/workers-compensation/workers-comp-for-mental-health.

[2] Fla. Stat. § 440.093(1).

[3] Steak ‘N Shake Inc. v. Spears, 2025 WL 1668095 (Fla. 5th DCA June 13, 2025).