Legal Question in Workers Comp in South Dakota

Re: workers compensation and false documents

I cannot be certain exactly what the question is as there is no punctuation in the posting and there are a number of confusing words. In general terms, I understand that the situation is one where a worker has a lifting limitation of 50 pounds established by someone who examined the worker at the employer's request, that the worker does not believe that she can life 50 pounds regardless of what the person says who did this examination, and that the job in truth requires lifting of more than 50 pounds. There is some belief that the employer has filed some false document concerning either the lifting restriction or concerning actual lifting requirements on the job.

My thoughts on this situation are that the employee would have to have some very specific information and very strong evidence of intentional and fraudulent conduct by the employer before any claim could be asserted against the employer for filing false documents.

The more likely outcome is that, in the event the worker gets hurt lifting something more than 50 pounds, the poor worker will be found to have violated her own lifting restrictions and thereby place her entitlement to workers' compensation benefits in jeopardy.

The better course is to get a treating doctor to establish realistic lifting restrictions for the worker, present those realistic lifting restrictions to the employer, and attempt to get the employer to modify the job to limit the lifting to that which is approved by the treating physician. The risk you run with this is that the employer will take the position that the job cannot be modified to fit within these lifting restrictions and the employee may thereby lose their job.

The better approach is to avoid getting hurt rather than allowing yourself to get hurt by working beyond your limitations and hoping for a legal remedy afterwards.

Good luck.