Look Out for Big Brother in Your Worker’s Compensation Case
You have a laptop in your home office. You purposely do not save any information on your computer at work because you know your employer has a right to read anything stored on the local drive or network. Your boss can even check the websites you visit. So you wait until you get home to do your personal work. Then you are injured at work and in the course of the legal process, the attorneys for the worker’s compensation insurance carrier files a discovery motion to examine your personal computer. Does your employer or its representatives have a right to search your laptop for incriminating information and photos?
Worker’s compensation is mandatory insurance for most companies. It covers a worker should he or she become injured at the workplace. Once a supervisor is notified of an injury, the worker goes either to an approved doctor or to the emergency room to treat the injury. The major advantage of worker’s compensation coverage is that the employee can seek medical treatment for the injury at no personal cost.
If there is a dispute and a worker’s compensation claim goes to court, both attorneys have the right to any records including documents, photos, videos, emails, etc., regarding the case. In a Georgia case, a judge actually allowed an insurance company’s attorney to pull an injured employee’s personal computer to check for incriminating information. This example is similar to issues people have about social media and information that is not appropriate to post. Nothing is private that is on a computer nowadays. For example, companies checking up on sick employees have been known to check Facebook to see if the employee posts different information about their sick day.
The morale of the story is…? If it’s private, write it in your diary and hide your key.
Michael Monheit is the managing lawyer at Monheit Law, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has practiced law since 1989. Michael Monheit was the managing attorney of the law offices of Herbert Monheit — now Silverman and Fodera — a firm... Michael Monheit→