United States: Postal Worker Loses $37K in SSDI Benefits for Failure to Advise of Workers’ Comp Awards

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision of the Social Security Appeals Council that found a disabled postal worker was not without fault in failing to submit complete, accurate information to the Social Security Commission regarding awards of workers’ compensation benefits received by the worker. The Court agreed that due to the worker’s failure to disclose benefits, he had received a Social Security benefit overpayment of $37,425.40. The worker contended the forms supplied to him by the Commission were confusing and an ALJ found his explanation sufficiently compelling to support a waiver of the overpayment. The Appeals Council found the worker accepted Social Security payments which he either knew or could have been expected to know were incorrect. 

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 Garcia v. Court, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 1225 (6th Cir., May 10, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 157.03.

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