Employer’s termination petition granted, the agreement as to compensation is null and void since evidence showed the claimant committed fraud in claiming the work injury.

The claimant alleged a work-related injury and was paid wage loss benefits, and the employer paid medical benefits. The employer later filed a termination petition, alleging the claimant committed fraud and that his claim and any agreements issued for the work injury should be deemed void. The applicable legal standard, as recited by the Appeal Board, is that, when an employer seeks to terminate benefits, the Board will not revisit final matters resolved by an agreement unless there has been a mutual mistake or a finding of fraud. In this case, the Board concluded that the alleged work incident, in fact, never happened and that the employer had, therefore, met the burden of showing fraud since the claimant had deliberately engaged in misrepresentation of facts to try to establish a non-existent work injury so as to receive benefits. Accordingly, the Board granted the employer’s petition and declared that any agreement with regard to the alleged work injury was null and void. The Board further referred this matter to the Fraud Prevention Bureau for further proceedings.

^{Case Law Alerts, 1st Quarter, January 2017. Case Law Alerts is prepared by Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin to provide information on recent developments of interest to our readers. This publication is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship. Copyright © 2017 Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, all rights reserved. This article may not be reprinted without the express written permission of our firm.}