UPDATES & ANALYSIS

Iowa Supreme Court to weigh in on Workers’ Compensation battle over surveillance video

by Ryan Koopmans | January 27, 2015

By Ryan Koopmans

The Iowa Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will decide whether and when an employer in a workers’ compensation case must turn over a surveillance video of an allegedly injured employee.  The case, which pits business groups against the plaintiffs’ bar, has been something of a big deal for anyone in the workers’ compensation industry.

The issue arises when an employer videotapes  an employee who claims he was injured on the job. Sometimes those videos show nothing; sometimes they show an employee doing things he couldn’t possibly do–if the injury is as he says it is.  Either way, the Core Group of the Iowa Association for Justice, a group of claimants’ lawyers, says that the employee should get to see that video before he testifies in a deposition.  

Until 2012, the various Workers’ Compensation Commissioners had ruled otherwise.  But upon the Core Group’s request, former Commissioner Christopher Godfrey reversed that practice, ruling that employers must produce the video when they’re asked.  Several employer and insurance groups–the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, the Iowa Self Insurers’ Association, and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, among others–appealed that ruling to the Polk County District Court and (after the court affirmed the Commissioner) to the Iowa Court of Appeals.  In October of last year, a three-judge panel of that court also ruled in favor of the Core Group.  Judge Christopher McDonald dissented.

The Court of Appeals’ decision is here.  The Iowa Supreme Court has not scheduled oral argument, though the justices will likely hear the case before their arguments wrap up in April. 

Tags: Iowa Supreme Court