A New York appellate court affirmed a ruling from the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that an injured employee made materially false statements in order to get workers’ comp benefits, even though the main part of the employer’s evidence of fraud was hearsay. The court said they would also not change the Board’s decision that disqualified him from receiving future benefits.

In 2015 Shaun Calabrese suffered a work-related injury to his back and was awarded comp benefits. His employer argued he had violated NY Workers’ Comp law because of alleged misrepresentations he had made regarding his search for employment.

He testified that he had filed numerous job applications in person, by email, or via paper application from prospective employers. The employer’s investigator had contacted some of these employers he was allegedly applying with, but they said there was no application on file from him, the contact name he was using was not with the prospective employer, or the position he said he applied for did not exist.

The WCLJB found that he had provided false reports and testimony about his search for employment. They imposed the mandatory penalty as well as the discretionary penalty of disqualifying him from receiving future benefits for this claim. The Board affirmed.

The appellate court acknowledged that this evidence was hearsay from the investigator but determined it was sufficiently reliable that he had made false misrepresentations in order to obtain benefits and the earlier decisions stood.

Read the case here.