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328 So. 2d 429

Docket No. 46854.

Grillo v. Big" B" Ranch

Rosa Ortega GRILLO, Petitioner, v. BIG "B" RANCH et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided February 25, 1976.

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1976-02-25

Relies on Berrier v. Associated Indemnity Co. · Stuyvesant Corp. v. Waterhouse · Adams v. Wagner

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1976-02-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently February 2003

14 state decisions

1101976198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Larry Klein, Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Johnson & McKeown, West Palm Beach, for petitioner.

¶2Kirk Sullivan, Adams, Sullivan & Coogler, and Marjorie D. Gadarian, Jones, Paine & Foster, West Palm Beach, for respondents.

¶3ENGLAND, Justice.

¶4Pursuant to Article V, § 3(b)(3) of the Florida Constitution, we have before us a workmen's compensation case involving the special employer doctrine explained in Berrier v. Associated Indemnity Co.,142 Fla. 351, 196 So. 188 (1940) and Stuyvesant Corp. v. Waterhouse,74 So.2d 554 (Fla. 1954). The respondent's manager admitted in a deposition introduced in evidence that he had the power to discharge the petitioner from his employment, but attempted in his oral testimony to explain away this admission. The Judge of Industrial Claims chose to believe the admission. However, the Industrial Relations Commission rejected this choice and reversed the order of the Judge.

¶5It is clear that the Commission is not permitted to be a trier of fact in proceedings before it. Adams v. Wagner,129 So.2d 129 (Fla. 1961). By usurping the role of the Judge in making a determination of credibility the Commission ignored the essential requirements of law. Therefore the writ of certiorari is granted, the order of the Commission is quashed and this case *430 is remanded with instructions to reinstate the order of the Judge of Industrial Claims.

¶6ADKINS, C.J., and OVERTON, SUNDBERG and HATCHETT, JJ., concur.

¶7ROBERTS and BOYD, JJ., dissent.

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