Surveillance

Home Run King Strikes Out

The subject we were hired to investigate had numerous subjective back related complaints, supposedly the result of a fall from a loading dock. The injuries could not be verified by medical exam and he had been released back to work under modified duties (lifting restricted to 10 pounds, restricted bending and twisting).

The subject continued to report to work but was regularly leaving early complaining of pain. The subject’s general appearance (big, strong, apparently healthy) and the subjective nature of the complaints were the “red flags” that triggered bringing in an investigator.

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Ms. Drama Queen

Through years of investigations, I have often found it to be true that “A claim is a solution to a problem, so what is the problem?” In other words, if you find out what the problem is that the person is having, you have the solution to your fraudulent claim.

Something didn’t seem right. A nurse had claimed a significant knee injury. She returned to work, then had to take off again, then back to work, then off again.

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What Did You Say About My Overhead Projector?

There was a male claimant who worked in the audio/visual department of a large teaching hospital. For a year this man kept a secret diary of any and all negative comments made by his coworkers regarding the audio/visual equipment used at the hospital.

After a year of keeping his secret diary of these negative comments, the man filed a “stress” claim due to the nature of the comments made by his co-workers. He claimed that these negative comments had caused irreparable harm to his psyche, and that as a result he had suffered an inability to work or function in any workplace or common social situation.

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Adrenaline

Normally investigations don’t involve an excess of adrenaline in the blood system. Or if they do, one has messed up big time. But every now and then, the only way to get a produce requires that an investigator walk where angels fear to tread, which in turn can cause an elevated heart rate.

A recent file of mine is an example of the above.

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The Case of the Correct Diagnosis

Stress claims are not the claimant/PI Attorney bonanza they were once upon a time, but they have not disappeared altogether.

This claim was based on workplace trauma and incident alleged to be so severe that our traumatized claimant could not work and filed for financial relief courtesy of the Worker’s Compensation carrier. According to her claim she could not leave her house or speak to anyone outside her immediate family.

She began treating with a psychiatrist as well. As the weeks rolled by, she showed no improvement.The examiner on the claim was among the people she could not speak to, and the claimant’s mother had to act as her representative.

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Dude, Where’s My Disability Check?

It is amazing what you can do in plain sight in terms of getting film on Southern California beaches. The subjects who file for disability and then head to the ocean to engage in recreation inconsistent with their claimed injuries do not seem to react to camcorders in their vicinity. Perhaps it is the other tourists on the beach taking film to show friends back in snowbound Iowa that provides the camouflage.

In this instance, the subject, if he noticed at all, may have had dreams of being discovered by the movie industry and coming off disability to a starring role. This guy looked so good after two years of being off work, it seemed impossible that anyone had interviewed him as the payments went on and on.

The subject obviously considered himself completely safe from scrutiny after two years. Our first surveillance resulted in excellent film of more than an hour ’s worth of cleaning the home garage, complete with bending, lifting and sweeping. A good start.

Coming back on the weekend, I found him on his way to the beach with a surfboard on top of the car. The weather had been warm so fortunately I was dressed for the beach – shorts, Hawaiian shirt and flip flops. I found a good spot on the beach, set down a towel and proceeded to film the ocean while our subject got ready to surf. Once he was out on the waves, he was completely oblivious to me and the film was perfect.

He finally came out of the water and I thought I was done. Good thing I didn’t leave because he headed directly for the sand volleyball courts and within minutes, he was diving into the sand to save points, leaping above the net to spike, and generally making the activity of surfing appear to be restful.

I was well and truly sunburned by the time he packed it up. But I had some great film, and this guy’s claim was toast. Ultimately the film was turned over to the DOI for prosecution.

The appearance of vibrant good health, a great tan and physical evidence of membership in a well-equipped gym do not normally appear in lists of red flags, but perhaps an addendum would be in order.

A Rural Challenge

A first rule of surveillance in rural areas is: When in Rome do as the Romans do. Or perhaps better stated: Look like what a Roman would expect a stranger to look like. For the last several years in many situations, that has meant: look like you are interested in buying real estate. [Editor’s note: this investigation was done in 2006.]


Our assignment involved a claimant alleging total disability and he was located near a small (population 400) farming community in the middle of Missouri. I arrived just prior to Labor Day weekend and quickly realized this was not going to be a walk in the park.

First, the Mapquest to the claimant’s only known address led to the fifth row of a cornfield. Second, Labor Day was approaching rapidly and every store and public facility in town was closing. We knocked on the door of the tiny City Hall, the only known repository of records, but got no answer. It looked like it was shut down tight already. Main Street was deserted. But the experienced investigator knows where he can get information even when faced with such daunting absences – the nearest bar.

Finding the bar was easy, but soon I was striking out once again. Asked about land I “heard” our claimant had for sale, the bartender knew nothing. The few patrons in the place knew nothing. I stepped back into the dusty street with an uneasy feeling and not one good idea of where to go next.

But I was rewarded for not staying in the bar to enjoy several cold ones and feel sorry for myself. A woman approached and asked if I had knocked on her door. Turns out she was City Hall staff, by herself in the office and on the phone, thus unable to answer the door. One thing led to another and pretty soon I was studying a map showing the location of every house in town.

I soon arrived at the residence I found on the map, and confirmed it was the home of our claimant. But the test of investigator will was not over. There was no activity. I waited and still nothing, totally quiet. Some digging was in order and once again I resorted to an establishment purveying liquid refreshment.

This time, closer to the residence, I came up with what I needed. The claimant was possibly building a house in a nearby town, and was known to be in Southern Missouri attending a wedding. Best of all he was expected to be home later that night.

The next day I followed the claimant from his house out to a farm ten miles outside of town. That was easy, but it turned out this assignment, as a test of investigator will, was the proverbial Bar Exam or SAT. There was no place to park outside of obvious view. Farmhouse, fields and the road –

that was all there was. No trees, no stone outcrops, not another parked car within five miles. No hills with vantage points from which to view the farm.

Your tireless investigator proceeded to the last resort — staging a vehicle breakdown off the side of the highway just beyond the claimant’s farm (and disconnecting the battery in case the claimant proved to be a helpful type, which he did not). The claimant ignored the vehicle with its hood up and just continued with his farm work. I was thankful for this attitude as I sat in the back with video rolling.

As any professor of agriculture (or five year old child) will tell you, farm work is not an appropriate use of time for the totally disabled. Just looking at the video of our claimant cruising by on a tractor, bouncing around over rough ground, and manhandling bales of hay makes me want to lie down and take a nap.

Our video was the end of that claim. And in my estimation, a pass with flying colors on this particular test of investigator will.

Altitude

Our subject had been collecting benefits for some time based on his assertion of total disability. I started in Denver at the subject’s address. Turned out his wife was there, but the male individual with her was not the subject. Too bad we weren’t doing divorce work — I could have closed the file.

A canvass of the neighborhood turned up the fact the subject was living in the mountains five hours west of Denver. We arrived late that afternoon and immediately obtained film of the subject working under an old car, crouching, crawling, bending and lifting objects of varying weight and size. Our subject was looking pretty spry.

We quit at dusk and returned the next morning. Our subject and friends departed in a jeep and headed out of town. And then uphill, a very steep hill on a very old and tattered dirt road. Fortunately the subject and myself were not the only ones putting our vehicles through their paces on this mountain trail, and I could follow without appearing out of place.

I had rented a jeep for this assignment and I was thinking that was a particularly brilliant move on my part. I found out later that standard issue jeeps and other 4-wheel drive models are not recommended for this trail, only vehicles fitted with special protective plates underneath and special low gearing in order to ease wear and tear on the brakes coming down. But as we started up I was oblivious to my under-equipped condition.

As we proceeded the road was getting worse but I was getting great film of the subject’s vehicle performing superbly in difficult conditions and rattling its contents (including the subject) severely. I got film of stops at lookouts and our subject’s confident maneuvers on foot over, around and on large rocks.

The road was now a mule trail with a sheer dropoff on one side, cliffs on the other. It was getting very cold and I was having trouble with the thin air. Turning the wheel felt like hauling a hundred pound sack from side to side.

Just when I thought conditions could not get worse, they did. We started downhill. It turned out that going up was a walk in the park compared to going down. And this was why they provide extra low gearing on the vehicles recommended for this road. Thank goodness I had all the film I needed, because it was now necessary, actually vital, that I concentrate on bringing my rental vehicle back instead of leaving it several thousand feet down the vertical cliff on the right. After a few miles, I was thinking that I was getting the hang of this and would live until tomorrow. Then, while negotiating a small stream that crossed the mule trail and dropped off the edge into oblivion, I got a flat tire. As I got out of the vehicle and stepped into six inches of freezing cold water, I realized that I was still suffering from oxygen deprivation. I quickly found a place to sit down as far from the edge as possible and put my head between my knees.

For those of you who have not experienced the attempt to breathe at 12,000 feet above sea level, let me give you a brief description. The body feels very heavy, there are pains everywhere, particularly the head and heart, and one wonders how a function like breathing that one took for granted suddenly became an Olympic competition.

After some minutes of sitting there it came to me that I had to change the tire. But I was too exhausted to even look for the jack, let alone get it out of the car. Slowly it dawned on me that I was in trouble and that toward the end of afternoon it was going to get really, really cold. Just then another offroad vehicle came down the hill and stopped. The driver and passengers offered to help which I thankfully accepted. They changed my tire and cheerfully sent me on my way down in front of them.

It seemed like the worst must have been over. But then I hit the switchbacks, hairpin turns in the road as it snaked down a place where no road should ever go. I made the first, but on the second I went into it just a hair too fast and the back end of the jeep got loose, finding gravel over near the edge. The hair on my arms was standing straight up as I planned a leap from the jeep – and then it stopped. Even after catching my breath, no easy task at this altitude, I could not bring myself to start back down.

My benefactors from the tire changing in the stream showed up moments later. From the position of the jeep and my very pale complexion, they knew exactly what had happened. An older gentleman from the party took control, offered to drive me down the hill, and I was saved. It was during this part of the trip that I learned we had just crossed Black Bear Pass, one of the more difficult off-road adventures available in the United States, and one which kills four or five people every year. I learned about the modifications made to vehicles to be used in such adventures. And of course I learned a lot about my benefactors, a family that makes the trek twice a year and has been doing so for 15 or 20 years.

Someone put the oxygen back into the air and I found my disposition remarkably improved. I was alive and without broken bones, and the pains in the head and muscles were distant memories. The car rental company did not notice the permanent indentations my fingers left in the steering wheel. Life is good. Best of all, I had film and the subject was well and truly busted.