New York: Videotape and Social Media Evidence Torpedo Worker’s Claim for Benefits

Where a workers’ compensation claimant represented to an independent medical examiner that he could not sit upright or stand without head support, that he became dizzy from time to time, could not engage in play or other activities with his son, could engage in no social activities and was sensitive to light and noise, and yet videotape surveillance footage during the relevant time frame showed the claimant working outside on a project that required lifting and carrying wood, engaging in recreational activities with a child—presumably his son—and carrying firewood and placing it into a pit, the New York Board was entitled to find that the claimant had made material misrepresentations in violation of N.Y. Workers’ Comp. Law § 114-a.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Matter of Papadakis v Fresh Meadow Power NE LLC, 2018 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8673 (3d Dept. Dec. 20, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 39.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see