Michael Levine was recently published in the Daily Business Review, one of Florida's most prominent legal publications. The article, co-authored with Michal Meiler of Ver Ploeg & Marino, is titled "Beyond Workers' Comp: Unlocking Liability in Workplace Accident Cases" and addresses a gap in how workplace injury cases are being handled across Florida.
What the Article Is About
Florida's ongoing construction boom has brought a corresponding rise in workplace accidents—and, according to Levine and Meiler, a pattern of underrepresentation. Too many attorneys, they argue, treat workers' compensation as the only available remedy and stop investigating there. The article explains why that assumption can leave seriously injured clients without the full recovery they may be entitled to.
Workers' compensation does provide a baseline: medical care and a portion of lost wages, without the need to prove fault. But the tradeoff is that injured workers generally give up the right to sue their employer in civil court. What the article makes clear is that workers' comp is rarely the whole picture. Florida law recognizes meaningful exceptions to that immunity, and a thorough investigation can reveal defendants (contractors, subcontractors, equipment manufacturers, and others) who fall entirely outside the workers' comp framework and can be held accountable through civil litigation.
The article walks through the legal distinctions that determine which parties may be sued and on what standard—including the difference between "vertical" and "horizontal" immunity, and the circumstances under which an employer itself can be brought into civil court. It also addresses the inadequacy of OSHA penalties as a deterrent. A willful safety violation, where an employer knowingly disregards worker safety, carries a maximum federal penalty of $165,514. In the context of a multimillion-dollar construction project, that figure functions more as a line item than a consequence.
Levine and Meiler draw on cases from their own practices to illustrate the stakes. One involves a construction worker killed in an electrocution accident after supervisors continued operating an excavator beneath live power lines despite explicit warnings from the equipment operator. The legal path to accountability in a case like that is neither simple nor automatic—it requires understanding exactly which parties can be reached, under what legal theory, and through which insurance policies.
Why This Matters Beyond the Legal Community
Florida's construction industry employs hundreds of thousands of workers, and the boom the article references shows no sign of slowing. The people doing that work—welders, electricians, crane operators, riggers—face real physical danger on the job, and the legal system they interact with after an injury is more complex than it appears.
Workers' compensation was designed to provide quick, no-fault relief. What it was not designed to do is fully compensate someone for a catastrophic injury or the wrongful death of a family member. When an employer conceals a known hazard, when defective equipment causes an accident, or when a subcontractor's gross negligence contributes to someone's death, civil law may provide remedies that workers' comp simply cannot. The question is whether the attorney handling the case knows to look for them.
That's the argument at the center of Michael's article—and it's the same argument that drives how STFBC approaches work injury claims. Injured workers deserve attorneys who investigate fully, understand the law deeply, and don't leave any recovery on the table because a case looks simple on the surface.