Missouri: Post-Deposition Surveillance Video Could Not Be Introduced Into Evidence

When, during a deposition related to claimant’s workers’ compensation claim, a representative of the employer indicated that it had conducted no surveillance activities of the claimant, the employer was under an obligation to supplement that answer when it subsequently hired a private investigator to conduct surveillance of the claimant. Accordingly, it was not error for the Commission to exclude the surveillance video at a later hearing. Prior to the deposition, the claimant had filed a proper notice announcing that she would take the deposition of one of the employer’s representatives and she had also requested production of documents, including all recorded surveillance activities of the claimant. She had a right to rely upon the statement that there had been no surveillance. The court added that while it was certainly true that there was no duty for witnesses to supplement deposition testimony, a party did have a duty to supplement the deposition testimony of its representatives or testifying experts.

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 Burlison v. Department of Public Safety, 2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 63 (Jan. 29, 2016) [2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 63 (Jan. 29, 2016)]

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.