A decision from the Supreme Court of Ohio found that a man who was receiving permanent total disability benefits could no longer receive those benefits because he was working as a horse-trainer and groomer, thereby committing fraud.

Kenneth Seibert sustained workplace injuries in 1990 and 1991 and received PTD compensation in 2007, effective for 2006. The workers’ comp commission found that he was incapable of performing sustained remunerative employment and he could receive PTD without interruption unless future facts or circumstances justified the stopping of his award.

In 2013 the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation began investigating him after they found out he had an active groomer/owner license with the Ohio State Racing Commission. They witnessed him jogging horses around a track, wearing riding attire and a helmet, hosing off a horse and removing a cart from a horse among other activities. When approached by investigators he told them he had worked and trained horses at the track for several years and had two horses which he kept in stalls owned by Jim Davis. Seibert’s rental and food fees were sometimes waived in exchange for running, bathing and feeding Davis’s horses.

The bureau filed a motion with the commission requesting that they terminate his PTD compensation effective March 26, 2009 and that they declare all compensation paid to him after that date as overpaid, and to finally declare that he committed fraud by concealing his employment while receiving PTD compensation.

The staff hearing officer determined that this “bartering” system between Seibert and Davis was sustained and remunerative employment and he had committed fraud by concealing this. Seibert appealed in the Tenth District Court of Appeals but they referred the action to a magistrate who said that he had been engaged in remunerative employment, but the record did not support the finding of fraud. Both parties objected to that decision and the Supreme Court of Ohio took on the case. Seibert objected to the conclusion that he began his remunerative employment starting March 26, 2009, and the commission objected to the conclusion that he had not committed fraud.

They found that his PTD compensation should no longer be paid because there was sustained remunerative employment and he seemed to have the physical ability to do so. Though it was more of a bartering system it still qualified as remunerative. Since he knew he was not permitted to work and that the activities he was performing were ordinarily compensable the Court said there was some evidence of fraud. They said that termination was appropriate at some point but there was no evidence in the record to support the finding that the date was March 26, 2009. They reversed that part of the finding and remanded the case to determine the appropriate date of the termination of benefits.

Read the case here.