April Petition Filings Posted

Today is Law Day across the country. It also marks the first day of the last week of the Florida Legislative Session, which might or Might not bring changes to workers' compensation (discussed in a May 1, 2017 post below. 

The petition volumes this year continue to be somewhat unpredictable. Filings in some months are markedly above the same month last year, while other 2017 months have demonstrated remarkable consistency.

The PFB filings in April 2017 exemplified another of the remarkably consistent, decreasing slightly (1%) from April 2016. Overall, the average monthly change through the first ten months of 2017 (July 1, 2016 through April 30, 2017) has been 6%. The projected change for the entire fiscal year has hovered between 6% and 7% for much of the year, and is currently 6.2%. Because two of the most significant PFB filing volume months for 2015-16 were May and June, it is possible that more moderate volumes in those months this year could result in a rate of increase below the current 6.2%. 

New Case volumes are demonstrating less elasticity (propensity to change) overall. There have been some similarly wide fluctuations from last year in certain months. However, overall, 2016-17 currently has the exact same volume of New Case filings as there were as of April 30, 2016 in 2015-16. New Case volumes might end the year with very little demonstrated change compared to 2015-16.