HARBOR FREIGHT TOOLS, INC. and SAFETY NATIONAL CASUALTY CORP./CORVEL, Appellants, v. PATRICIA WHITEHEAD, Appellee. 1st District. Case No. 1D17-3194. May 18, 2018. On appeal from an order of the Judge of Compensation Claims. Ralph J. Humphries, Judge. Date of Accident: May 3, 2015. Counsel: Daniel M. Schwarz and Gina M. Jacobs of Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A., Plantation, for Appellants. Daniel J. Glary, Jacksonville, for Appellee.

(PER CURIAM.) A judge of compensation claims awarded workers’ compensation benefits based on the so-called “120-day rule,” which generally precludes carriers from denying compensability if they begin paying benefits and do not challenge compensability within 120 days. See § 440.20(4), Fla. Stat. (2015); see also Sierra v. Metropolitan Protective Servs., 188 So. 3d 863, 866-67 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015). But “[a] claimant’s ‘defense’ of waiver to an [employer’s] ability to deny compensability of an accident or specific injury/condition pursuant to the ‘120-Day Rule’ is an affirmative pleading which must be timely raised and specifically plead[ed].” Teco Energy, Inc. v. Williams, 234 So. 3d 816, 823 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017). Here the claimant did not specifically plead application of the 120-day rule. The judge of compensation claims therefore erred in awarding benefits based on the rule.

REVERSED. (LEWIS, KELSEY, and WINSOR, JJ., concur.)