Valuing a Workplace Chemical Burn With Permanent Nerve Damage

Attorney Answer

No one can tell you what your case is worth from a description, and I am not going to guess — be wary of anyone who does. What I can tell you is where the money comes from, because in a work injury there are usually two separate sources and most people only know about one.

The first is workers' compensation. Fla. Stat. § 440.11 makes it your exclusive remedy against your employer: you generally cannot sue the employer for negligence, subject only to a narrow intentional-tort exception. Fla. Stat. § 440.15 governs what the system pays — temporary total, temporary partial, permanent total, and permanent impairment benefits — and permanent impairment is paid off a rating schedule rather than off how badly the injury has changed your life. That is why the compensation number often feels unrelated to the harm.

On benefit duration, the Florida Supreme Court in Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg, 194 So. 3d 311 (Fla. 2016), held § 440.15(2)(a) (2009) unconstitutional as applied under the state constitution's access-to-courts provision, because cutting off temporary total disability at 104 weeks left a worker who was totally disabled but not yet at maximum medical improvement in a gap. Read this carefully: the Court expressly refused to hold that such a worker is automatically entitled to permanent total disability benefits. Its remedy was to revive the earlier limit of up to 260 weeks. The practical result is up to five years of temporary total disability, not automatic permanent benefits.

The second source is a third-party claim. Section 440.11 exclusivity protects your employer — it does not protect the chemical's manufacturer, a property owner, a contractor, or an equipment maker. That is often where the larger recovery lies in a chemical burn case.

What you can do

1. Confirm in writing that your employer received notice of the injury, and keep the proof. Workers' compensation notice deadlines are measured in days. 2. Get to a nerve specialist through the authorized treating physician, and ask for a referral in writing if it is refused. 3. Ask when you will be placed at maximum medical improvement and what impairment rating is assigned — those two things drive the benefit calculation. 4. Preserve the chemical container, label, and safety data sheet, and photograph the work area now. 5. Write down who else was on site: which contractor, whose equipment, who supplied the chemical. Those names are your third-party claim. 6. If benefits are denied or stalled, file a petition for benefits rather than waiting for the carrier to come around.

⏱ Time limits apply. Florida's workers' compensation law requires you to report a workplace injury to your employer within a short window measured in days, and sets a separate, longer deadline to file a petition for benefits. Any third-party claim against a non-employer runs on its own, independent clock. All three depend on your specific dates, so get them checked now rather than after treatment ends.

Even if you are handling this yourself, you would be best served by a brief phone consultation with a local Florida attorney before you act. Most lawyers offer a short initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts — and on how your court and judge actually handle this — is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.