Category Archives: surveillance

What The Office gets wrong and right about workers compensation

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“What do you want to watch?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about The Office?”

“Okay.”

I had this conversation with my wife a few weeks ago after we put our son to bed. That night we ended up watching Episode 2 of Season Six. In that episode warehouse manager, Daryl, makes a workers’ comp. claim for a knee injury. The claim leads to Dwight to suspect fraud.

Of course, I thought the episode got a quite a bit wrong about workers’ compensation, but the episode got some things right as well.

Workers’ compensation as a substitute for health insurance — Daryl claims in the episode that he wouldn’t have to claim workers’ compensation if the United States had “universal health care.”  This is a misconception for two reasons.

One study showed the expansion of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act  means more claims are pushed onto workers’ compensation because health insurers don’t want to pay benefits for medical treatment that should be paid for by workers’ compensation.

Secondly, Canada has universal single-payer health insurance. Canada still has workers’ compensation laws.  Work injuries also lead to income loss, so workers’ compensation doesn’t just pay medical bills, but it also provides payment for loss of income and permanent disability.

So, to quote Oscar Martinez, actually even if an employee has health insurance, they could be claiming workers’ compensation for both income loss reasons and because their health insurance is pushing them to claim workers’ compensation.

Presumption of fraud — Dwight assumes that Daryl’s claim was fraudulent.  At the end of the episode it is strongly implied that Daryl lied about how he hurt his knee. This plot development lines up with the presumption that workers’ compensation claims are almost per se fraudulent. This ignores the fact that most serious workers’ compensation fraud is committed by employers and medical providers. (For the record misuse of company property isn’t a per se defense to denial of workers’ compensation benefits.)

What “The Office” Gets right about workers’ compensation

The stigma of workers’ compensation

The Office episode accurately portrays the skeptical attitude that many employers have about workers compensation. Dwight and Toby’s spying on Daryl is not out of the ordinary for employers. Daryl’s comment that he wouldn’t be filing a claim if he had better health insurance also indicates an attitude on his part that he is doing something wrong by filing a workers’ compensation claim.

Surveillance

The episode also includes Dwight and Toby spying on Daryl. Surveillance of injured workers is fairly common. I have also seen my share of managers engaging in the type of freelance surveillance of the type engaged in by Toby and Dwight.

Employment law issues and workers’ compensation

The episode also portrays the fundamental truth about Human Resources – they are there to protect the company. Even if HR comes off as being on the employee side, as shown by Toby’s fist bump to Daryl when Daryl turns in his injury claim, Toby is willing to go along with Dwight’s “investigation” of Daryl’s injury. Further the normally mild-mannered Toby even goes so far to yell an insult at Daryl’s sister when he mistakenly thinks she is Daryl committing workers’ compensation fraud.

The story line ends with Dwight filing a grievance against Daryl for misusing company property and Daryl filing a grievance against Dwight and Toby for spying on him. The episode is accurate that work injuries often create employment law issues related to retaliation. While the Daryl claims workers’ comp. plot line ends with the episode, workers’ compensation retaliation can have long-lasting and serious effects.

The scene where Daryl confronts Toby and Dwight about the spying also contains an undercurrent of racial tension between Daryl, who is black, and Toby and Dwight – who are white. Workers’ compensation retaliation can also be mixed in with other forms of discrimination such as racial discrimination.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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Are surveillance drones watching injured workers in Nebraska?

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An eye in the sky watching injured workers?

Nearly 7 years ago, I wrote a blog about employers and insurance companies using surveillance of injured workers to fight paying workers’ compensation benefits in hopes of finding any reason to reduce or deny an injured workers name. Recently, our Plaintiff lawyer colleagues in other states have noticed use of drones for video surveillance of their clients.

I have not personally experienced “drone surveillance” of any of my clients yet, but I am sure the insurance companies will soon find a way to follow suit in Nebraska. In discussions with other workers compensation lawyers throughout the country, other lawyers have that mentioned insurance companies have used drone-surveillance against their clients in multiple states.

Is drone surveillance even legal? Well, that might depend on what state you live in. However, the FAA does have guidelines on the use of drones and restrictions of how those drones may be operated. Some surveillance tactics may run afoul FAA rules.

Also, many states have enacted their own laws to protect citizen’s privacy from drone-use and cameras. Here are a few examples:

Arkansas forbids the use of drones to invade privacy

California forbids the use of drones to invade a person’s privacy and to record anyone without his or her consent.

Texas Code Section 423.002(a) lays out specific situations in which drones with cameras may be used and insurance surveillance is not one of them.

Virginia makes it a criminal misdemeanor if drones are being used to harass if given notice to desist.  

Florida also prohibits a person from using a drone to record someone if such person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, with the presumption being that someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy if they are on their own property. 

While it is good that states are acting to protect privacy from the intrusion of aerial drones, there may be a legal fight over whether federal rules should preempt state laws about drones.

While aerial drones may be used to sniff out workers’ compensation fraud by employees, I doubt they will be effective in stamping out the larger problem of employer and provider fraud in workers’ compensation.

In summary, while I have not seen it in Nebraska yet, it is a possibility that some day drone surveillance will be used here. However, given all of the regulations (along with the cost and conspicuousness of drones) it is doubtful that drone surveillance would be used. If it is used, Nebraska may have to enact some laws similar to these other states with regards to drone use.

 

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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