New York: Claimant Disqualified from Future Benefits Based Upon Misrepresentations as to Post-Injury Earnings

A New York appellate court affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that found in relevant part that claimant violated N.Y. Workers’ Comp. Law § 114-a and disqualified him from future indemnity benefits where the employer presented evidence that claimant did not disclose his work activities with a landscaping business during the relevant time periods. During a hearing, claimant denied working for the landscaper, indicating that he had received payment from it on behalf of an undocumented friend who did not have a social security number. The court noted, however, that the landscaping company, responding to a subpoena, submitted a contract signed by claimant regarding the rate of pay claimant was to receive for landscaping services. Substantial evidence supported the Board’s findings.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Matter of Vazquez v Skuffy Auto Body Shop, 2019 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 332 (3d Dept. Jan. 17, 2019)

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

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