Iowa: High Court Rules Surveillance Materials Are Protected by Work Product Rule

Iowa Code § 85.27(2), which generally requires an employer or insurance carrier immediately to release all information concerning the employee’s physical or mental condition relative to the workers’ compensation claim, does not override the state’s work product privilege, held a divided Supreme Court of Iowa. Reversing a decision of the state’s Court of Appeals, the Court held that § 85.27(2) does not affect privileges and protections related to the litigation process (e.g., the work product doctrine), because the statute is limited to health-care-related privileges such as the physician-patient privilege. Accordingly, the employer or carrier need not turn over surveillance footage related to the employee’s physical condition prior to deposing him. The Court indicated that this was a situation where “all” could not be interpreted to mean there were no limitations. For example, under the commissioner’s interpretation of the statute, which mandated that surveillance video evidence be immediately turned over if requested, even an attorney-client privileged email from a claimant to her attorney discussing her impairment would have to be produced—an outcome that even the commissioner was unwilling to countenance.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Iowa Ins. Inst. v. Core Group of the Iowa Ass’n for Justice, 2015 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 68 (June 12, 2015) [2015 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 68 (June 12, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 127.10 [127.10]

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

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