New York: Truck Driver’s Failure to Mention Side Business Did Not Result in Forfeiture of Benefits

A New York truck driver’s failure to disclose his involvement in an online and retail flower business was not the sort of misrepresentation that should disqualify him from receiving workers’ compensation benefits under N.Y. Workers’ Comp. Law, § 114-a, held a state appellate court. The court observed that in two hearings, the employee had freely admitted that he owned a company engaged in the flower business, but the employee did not consider it work because it was not profitable. Stressing that the Board had considerable latitude in making determinations regarding misconduct, the appellate court concluded that the Board could reasonably have found that the employee had not made misrepresentations for the purposes of receiving workers’ compensation benefits.

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 Permenter v. WRS Envtl. Servs. Inc., 2019 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4295 (3d Dept., May 30, 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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see