Summary
affirming trial court's dismissal of plaintiff's claim seeking declaratory judgment that statute governing compensation benefits payable for death was unconstitutional because recipient of compensation payments had not yet died
Summary of this case from Hansen v. Geovera Specialty Insurance CompanyOpinion
No. 81-537.
December 1, 1981.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Dade County, Arden Siegendorf, J.
Kaplan, Sicking, Hessen, Sugarman, Rosenthal DeCastro and Richard A. Sicking, Miami, for appellants.
Adams, Kelley Kronenberg and Steven P. Kronenberg, Miami, for appellees.
Before HUBBART, C.J., and BARKDULL and SCHWARTZ, JJ.
In 1973, Michael LaBella, who is now 85 years of age, was seriously injured in an industrial accident while employed by Food Fair, Inc. He has received permanent total disability workers' compensation payments ever since. In 1980, alleging they were his dependents and therefore the potential recipients of any compensation benefits payable for his death, LaBella's wife, daughter and grandson brought an action in the circuit court for a declaratory judgment that the blanket five-year limitation in Section 440.16(1), Florida Statutes (1979) is unconstitutional. The provision states:
See Sec. 440.16(1)(b), Fla. Stat. (1979).
440.16 Compensation for death.
(1) If death results from the accident within 1 year thereafter or follows continuous disability and results from the accident within 5 years thereafter, the employer shall pay . . . (emphasis supplied)
The trial court dismissed the complaint and we affirm that decision.
Mr. LaBella has not yet died. There is therefore no way of knowing either (a) whether any of the plaintiffs will survive him or, (b) even more obviously, whether his death will be a result of the 1973 accident. Both of these contingencies must occur for any death benefits to be recovered even if the appellants' position on the constitutional question were upheld. It is well-settled, however, that Florida courts will not render, in the form of a declaratory judgment, what amounts to an advisory opinion at the instance of parties who show merely the possibility of legal injury on the basis of a hypothetical "state of facts which have not arisen" and are only "contingent, uncertain, [and] rest in the future." Williams v. Howard, 329 So.2d 277, 283 (Fla. 1976) and cases cited; Robinson v. Town of Palm Beach Shores, 388 So.2d 314 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980); American Indemnity Co. v. Southern Credit Acceptance, Inc., 147 So.2d 10, 11 (Fla. 3d DCA 1962) ("[T]he courts may not be required to answer a hypothetical question or one based upon events which may or may not occur."); Harris v. Harris, 138 So.2d 376 (Fla. 3d DCA 1962), cert. denied, 146 So.2d 374 (Fla. 1962). The clear applicability of this principle to the present situation requires that the judgment under review be
Affirmed.