Did Fraud Defense Apply where Worker’s Hiring Paperwork didn’t Disclose 4-Wheeler Crash?

What Do You Think?

Georgia’s Rycroft defense can help an employer avoid paying workers’ compensation benefits in certain circumstances where the employee made a fraudulent misrepresentation about her pre-existing physical injuries. But what happens if the company learns about the fraud, keeps the employee on the payroll, and the employee gets hurt again? 

A state appeals court addressed that issue in a case involving an employee for a roofing company. The  company hired her as an assembly operator–a position that required significant physical exertion. 

As part of the hiring process, she completed a questionnaire asking whether she had previously sustained any broken bones or other injuries to her neck, back, shoulder, or knee. Oh, of course, there was that one four-wheeler incident in 2012, when she was airlifted to a hospital and sustained fractured ribs, a broken wrist, a dislocated shoulder, a strained cervical ligament, and an acute fracture in her spinal cord. But she reportedly didn’t mention the crash or the injuries.

In June 2021, she aggravated her old injuries while working on the assembly line. She took time off to recuperate and returned to work in September, which is when she finally told her supervisors about her pre existing injuries.

She injured her neck and back again on the assembly line on Sept. 14, 2021. She filed a workers’ compensation claim for the September 14 injuries. The company denied the claim based on fraud.

The Rycroft defense applies where:

1. The employee knowingly and wilfully made a false representation about her physical condition; 
2. The employer relied on that false representation and its reliance was a substantial factor in hiring the employee; and
3. A causal connection existed between the false representation and the injury for which the employee seeks benefits.

Did the Rycroft defense apply?

A. No. The company retained her after she told supervisors about her 2012 injuries.

B. Yes. The company relied on the employee’s false representation when it hired her.

If you selected B, you agreed with the court in McKay  v. Inalfa Roof System, Inc., No. A24A1422 (Ga. Ct. App. 02/27/25), which held that the company waived its right to assert fraud to deny the claim.

The court conceded that the employee knowingly and wilfully made a false representation during the hiring process. Further, the company relied on her false representation when it hired her. 

But there was one flaw in the company’s use of the Rycroft defense; it continued to employ the claimant even after she revealed her deception. 

The court noted that the Rycroft defense essentially seeks to protect a company that relies on a false representation to its detriment. Here, the company essentially extinguished its right to use the defense to the September 14 injury claim by keeping the employee on the payroll. 

“[The company’s] willingness to retain [the employee] in the assembly operator position, after learning of her prior back injury and false representation about it, waives its right to use the Rycroft defense to deny [her] workers' compensation benefits for the subsequent injury she suffered,,” the court wrote.

It reversed the superior court’s decision upholding the Board’s denial of the claim. 

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