New York: Failure to Disclose Lawn Mowing Activities Constitutes Violation of Employee Fraud Statute

Substantial evidence supported the Workers’ Compensation Board’s decision that the claimant’s failure fully to describe and disclose his lawn mowing activities, after he was classified as temporarily totally disabled and remained out of work, constituted knowing false statements to obtain workers’ compensation benefits within the meaning of N.Y. Work. Comp. Law § 114-a. The Third Department of the New York Appellate Division held, however, that the Board had provided no rationale for permanently disqualifying the claimant from receiving any future wage replacement benefits. The case was modified and remanded for additional findings on that issue.

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.

See Matter of Kodra v. Mondelez Intl., Inc., 2016 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 7976 (3rd Dep’t, Dec. 1, 2016)

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

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