Last week brought an interesting post to my LinkedIn feed. Joe Paduda, a health and wellness advocate with workers' compensation roots, noted that "serious injuries drop - a lot." The post is here. The header for the post is "Great news indeed." It is always good news that people are not getting injured. I didn't have access to his data points, but I take them on faith.
I ran a quick internet search and found that The Economics Daily of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that
"Private industry employers reported 2.6 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2023, down 8.4 percent from 2022."
That is promising indeed.
Property Casualty reported in March that
"Serious injuries and fatalities fell 16% in 2023 when compared to 2022"
This was a return to the "lowest total since 2017," and is "suggesting the start of a downward trajectory."
That is even better news than the decrease in injuries overall. I often pause with such statistics because, whatever they portend, the data being discussed is over a year old. There is hope that 2024 will bear out the characterization of a "trend," but such is never a certainty.
The post got me thinking about whether litigation is up or down in Florida. The 2024 OJCC Annual Report is on the website. It conglomerates a great deal of data for the last decade (older reports can illustrate further into history). In 2024, the OJCC saw "new cases" decrease 1% and petitions increase 7% (p. 15). From the one year, one might see a trend of "increase" in litigation.
But, the figures for petitions were markedly more consistent with each other 2016-17 through 2022-23, notably hovering in and around the low 70 thousands. The "new case" decrease in 2023-24 must be considered in light of the two notable increased in 2021-22 and 2022-23. In truth, the "new case" volume has similarly shown reasonable consistency in the low 30 thousands.
The workers' compensation forum is a persistency of early April. I have been honored to participate in that program on various occasions, and find the experience rewarding. I am often asked about litigation statistics, and the report by The Seer of Syracuse (Mr. Paduda) prompted me to consider the numbers ahead of the conference this year.
The petition volume this fiscal year (with three quarters in the books) appears to be shifting down about 4.2%, while "new cases" are down about 5.4%. The months that show significant decrease in each were October, November, and February. February is harder to explain, but it is practical to consider Hurricanes Helene (September 24-27) and Milton (October 5-10) as impacting injuries, law firms, medical care, and more.
Notably, if the same 9 month period of 2022-23 is compared with 2024-25, then petition volume this year so far is about 2.6% higher than 2022-23. New case volume remains below the 2022-23 pace by about 5.5%.
This all illustrates that snapshots may not tell the whole story, and trends become more apparent after years accumulate. It is difficult to tell if a particular present is a new trend or an outlier. Nonetheless, it appears that litigation in Florida will trend downward when 2024-25 ends June 30, 2025.
Whether that is related to the decrease in "serious" injuries reported by Property Casualty or not remains to be seen. Whether there is a trend or not remains to be seen. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see these figures and to ponder the future of litigation in the Sunshine State.
