BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Florida’s First District Court of Appeal heard oral arguments in three cases in Starke on June 18.
The Tallahassee-based court ordinarily hears cases in the state capital but also hears cases throughout the First District, which consists of the First, Second, Third, Eighth, and Fourteenth circuits.
Florida’s Eighth Judicial Circuit is based in Gainesville and includes Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Levy, Gilchrist, and Union Counties.
On June 18, a three-judge panel of L. Clayton Roberts, Stephanie W. Ray, and Adam S. Tanenbaum heard oral arguments at the Bradford County Courthouse.
The first case, the Estate of Kyle Robert Volp vs. the Florida Sheriff’s Risk Management Fund and Andrew William Sasser, involved a Nassau County correctional deputy who used force on a pretrial detainee, resulting in the deputy’s termination and battery charges being filed against him.
A lawyer for the estate sought to reverse a lower court’s ruling that the risk management fund’s policy covering the sheriff’s office did not cover the use of force incident because the policy excluded criminal acts. However, the same policy expressly stated that it did cover battery.
In the second case, Kenneth Lakatis vs. the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office and the Sheriff’s Risk Management Fund, lawyers for the appellant, Lakatis, sought to reverse a judge of compensation claims order that denied workers’ compensation benefits to the Citrus County Sheriff’s sergeant.
In 2023, Sergeant Lakitas was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. He was a 20-year smoker and had a history of cholesterol problems.
During an April 2024 administrative hearing, a court-appointed expert medical advisor testified that the claimant’s non-occupational risk factors were the major factors that led to the deputy’s accelerated cardiovascular disease. The judge subsequently denied benefits to the officer.
The third case, Joseph Durden vs. St. Johns County Fire Rescue/Preferred Governmental Claims Solutions, was also a workers’ compensation appeal. This case centered around the definition of heart disease and whether atrial fibrillation constitutes heart disease under Florida’s workers’ compensation rules.
