No Recovery for FL Mother Whose 16-Year-Old Son Died on First Day of Work

A Florida appellate court affirmed the denial of death benefits to a mother whose 16-year-old son was killed in a tragic drowning accident on the first day of his part-time job since, under § 440.16(1)(b), Fla. Stat., she could not prove she was “dependent” upon the deceased son, who had no prior wages [Sandifort v. Akers Custom Homes, 2022 Fla. App. LEXIS 4697 (1st DCA July 13, 2022)]. The appellate court was not convinced by the mother’s argument that she had indeed been “dependent” upon the son since his permanent learning disability had allowed the mother to receive a monthly SSI check which she used to help support the family. That monthly check ceased at the boy’s death.

Background

Sandifort was the mother and sole caretaker of five children, two of whom were minors at the time. None worked or had any source of income beyond nominal child support from an ex-husband. The family was sustained primarily by the SSI that Sandifort received on behalf of her sixteen-year-old son, who had a permanent learning disability. Sandifort used the SSI money to support herself, the sixteen-year-old, and the rest of the family.

In July 2019, while on summer break from high school, the sixteen-year-old received an offer from a friend to work for a subcontractor of the employer, Akers Custom Homes, Inc. The teen had never been employed before in his life, but he desired to earn some extra spending money to buy himself a new pair of shoes. Unfortunately, on his very first day on that new job, the sixteen-year-old drowned in a workplace accident.

Sandifort claimed, inter alia, death benefits from the employer. The employer accepted compensability of the workplace death and paid medical and funeral costs, but it denied any other death benefit, asserting that Sandifort and her other children were not “dependents” of her son and not entitled to compensation under the statute. The employer based this assertion on the fact that the son had been working for only one day and had no other income.

The Judge of Compensation Claims (JCC) denied the claim, noting that the sixteen-year-old had not held a job before the accident that killed him. The JCC concluded that Sandifort could not establish dependency because her son had never established “the ability to support himself much less anyone else.”

Dependent Upon His Disability Check

Sandifort argued in pertinent point that the statute did not limit dependency to her son’s wage-earning ability or his capacity to separately provide for himself. She contended that she and her other children relied on her son’s SSI benefits—which of course stopped coming after his death—and that was enough to qualify her and the kids under § 440.16(1)(b), Fla. Stat., as dependents of the deceased son.

Appellate Court’s Decision

The appellate court disagreed with Sandifort. Construing § 440.16(1)(b), Fla. Stat., the court said payment of a specific type of compensation was allowed upon the death of an employee resulting from a compensable accident. But only several specified relatives can get it, a parent and sibling being two examples. The statute based entitlement “on account of dependency upon the deceased,” and the amount of compensation was calculated as a “percentage … of the average weekly wages.” The court stressed that that a relative must have a particular type of dependency to be entitled to the benefit: dependency on the decedent’s wage-earning capacity.

Here, Sandifort could not show actual dependency on her son. The court said the statute anticipated a dependency on the deceased employee’s wage-earning capacity, not his entitlement to welfare payments. More to the point here, stressed the court, any expectation on Sandifort’s part of future wages from the son also would not be enough. The expectation of future earnings was not a substitute for a relative’s reliance on a deceased employee’s prior earnings. Summarizing its holding, the court said:

Before his death, Sandifort’s son had not held a paying job. Tragically, the first wages he ever earned came on his last day of life. As a matter of law, she cannot show that the sixteen-year-old’s death on the job resulted in a wage loss for her “on account of dependency upon the deceased” son, because there were no prior wages brought in by the son that she was counting on for support. That fact alone is dispositive to Sandifort’s entitlement to compensation under section 440.16(1)(b). The JCC’s disposition, denying her petition, was dictated by the terms of the statute, so it was correct [Opinion, p.