LOIS Uncovers Hidden Car Accident One Day After Alleged Work Accident, Secures Maximum Fraud Finding

LOIS Associate Alexa Cintron and Paralegal Megan Pachner were successful in obtaining a WCL Section 114-a finding after the completion of physician depositions and the successful cross-examination of the Claimant in a New York Workers’ Compensation claim. Pending litigation on amending the claim to include additional sites of injury, Cintron discovered that the Claimant was in a subsequent motor vehicle accident, wherein he injured body sites that overlapped with what was alleged in his Workers’ Compensation claim. This motor vehicle accident took place one day after the alleged Workers’ Compensation accident. Cintron was able to obtain favorable testimony from Claimant’s treating physicians, who conceded that they all had no knowledge of the motor vehicle accident and that their opinions as to the causal relationship of the additional sites of injury would change if they had known. The Claimant further failed to disclose his subsequent motor vehicle accident on his Employee Claim Form C-3. After completion of Claimant’s testimony, the Law Judge found the Claimant had egregiously violated WCL Section 114-a, subjecting him to the maximum mandatory and discretionary penalties of a lifetime ban on any and all indemnity awards, based on his failure to disclose the superseding motor vehicle accident. The Law Judge also declined to amend the claim to include the additional sites of injury alleged, as the Law Judge did not find the Claimant to be at all credible.