Court voids its workers' comp rules.

The Supreme Court has declined to adopt proposed amendments for workers' compensation procedural rules, saving, constitutionally the court does not have--and never has had--authority to promulgate such rules.

The December 2 opinion settled a dispute about whether the court or the Division of Administrative Hearings, which oversees the Office of the Judges of Compensation Claims, is in charge of procedural rules for workers' compensation cases.

The court came down definitively on the side of DOAH, even receding from a 1973 decision it made and finding a state law invalid where the legislature gave the court authority to promulgate the rules.

The rules issue arose after DOAH last year set out its own procedural rules, citing a 1993 state law that gave it that authority. The rules committee proceeded with its biennial rules review of the court-approved rules. It and the Bar's Workers' Compensation Section said a 1974 law as well as the court's 1973 ruling in In Re: Workmen's Compensation Rules of Procedure, 285 So. 2d 601 (Ha. 1973), gave the court authority over the rules.

"[The ruling] will help get things to settle down a little bit, without the cloud of controversy settling over us," said Judge S. Scott Stephens, the compensation judge who last year prepared the DOAH-approved rules. "It's very important for the attorneys to know what to expect procedurally."

DOAH has already set up.a 14-person committee to review and refine its rules, Stephens said, and it includes members from the Bar's Workers' Compensation Section, compensation judges, and lawyers who represent the plaintiffs and defense bar. The panel held its first meeting on December 8.

"Our goal is to have rules of procedure that are tolerable for everybody and apply to everybody across the state," he said.

Stephens said he doesn't think the transition to the DOAH rules will be difficult because compensation judges, as far as he knows, have been using the agency rules since February 2003. He also noted that the court made its ruling prospective only, which will prevent reopening old cases because of procedural questions.

Representatives from the Rules of Workers' Compensation Committee and the Bar's Workers' Compensation Section said they were disappointed with the decision, but expect to work well with DOAH on maintaining the new rules.

Committee Chair Jeff Jacobs noted that former Justice Arthur England, in a case subsequent to the 1973 ruling, wrote a dissent that was essentially...