The Claimant, the Gym Window, and the One-Hour Time Offset
Your subject in a workers' compensation file claims a 10-pound lifting limit and a 20-minute driving limit. You work three days in Traverse City, Michigan, which is in the Eastern time zone. Day 2 gives you 12 clear minutes of him loading 50-pound salt bags into a pickup. Day 3 gives you 22 minutes of him squatting 185 pounds, filmed from a public sidewalk through the ground-floor window of a commercial gym. Your camera was still set to Central time from an earlier Wisconsin job, so every file is stamped one hour earlier than the actual event, and the files auto-numbered in shooting order. On Day 3 a man later identified as the claimant's brother-in-law approached your vehicle, asked what you were doing, and photographed your plate. That evening you posted a still on the firm's public Instagram with the caption 'Another one bites the dust.' Your card is nearly full and you have been deleting the weakest clips to make room.
1. Identify every problem with the evidence and the conduct, and state what you must do before the report goes out.
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Evidence problems.
- Time offset. Every file is one hour early. Silent correction is worse than the error; the defense will compare your stamps to the gym's door log or the claimant's phone and argue fabrication.
- Deletion. Deleting clips from the original card destroys the ability to authenticate what was on the card and supports a spoliation argument. An investigator who keeps only the strong clips is keeping only the clips that help.
- Gym footage. Filming from a public sidewalk is generally lawful, but a ground-floor window at street level creates an argument under MCL 750.539d about a private place, and you have captured uninvolved members.
- Confrontation. The brother-in-law has your plate and now knows the vehicle. The subject will assume surveillance and adapt.
- Publication. The Instagram post confirms the existence of an investigation to anyone, including the claimant's attorney.
Before the report: stop deleting; download everything to two media; hash the originals; write-protect the card; rebuild a time-verified chronology using your own GPS and vehicle log, receipts, weather and sunrise data, and any third-party record that pins the true time; write an affidavit explaining the camera setting and the verification; prepare an index of every clip including the weak ones; and flag the gym footage for counsel with a note on what it does and does not show.
2. The adjuster asks you to send only the salt-bag clip and 'leave out the time stamps.' How do you respond, and what belongs in the report?
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Refuse the second part flatly and give him a better version of the first part.
Removing time stamps is not a formatting preference; it is an alteration of evidence. If the footage surfaces later with metadata intact, every other item in the file becomes suspect and your testimony is impeached before you finish your first sentence. Withholding the gym footage is a misrepresentation of the investigation's scope, and if the claimant's attorney obtains it - which he will - the case settles in his favor.
Explain the division of labor: you produce a complete, accurate report; the adjuster and defense counsel decide what to disclose to the other side. That protects him and it protects you.
The report should contain: the assignment and the claim limits at issue; a chronology with verified times and an explicit note that camera stamps were offset by one hour and how the true times were established; an index of all footage with duration, location, and what it shows; the salt-bag sequence with independent corroboration of time; the gym sequence with a candid note that the vantage point was a public sidewalk, that other members are visible, and that no audio was captured; the encounter with the brother-in-law; the post and its removal; and a signed affidavit.
Let the adjuster's attorney make the tactical call. Your product is the truth, indexed.
3. What do you do about the Instagram post and the brother-in-law, and what should happen internally?
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The post. It is a confidentiality breach and it identifies the subject of an open file. It also hands the claimant a defamation and emotional-distress theory and gives his attorney an easy exhibit. Remove it, but preserve a screenshot and a memo recording what was posted, when, on which account, and who saw it. Do not edit history to make it look like it never happened, and do not delete the underlying footage.
Notify the client the same day, in writing, and notify your E&O carrier and counsel. The carrier's duty to defend may depend on how and when it learns of the problem. Expect the client to be unhappy; the alternative is being surprised by it in a deposition.
The brother-in-law. Disengage. Do not identify yourself, do not explain the file, and do not argue. Record the time, location, description, the plate photo, and the exact words used in your log. Assume the claimant now knows: the surveillance value of your current vehicle and pattern is near zero, and the risk of a confrontation is real. Recommend to the adjuster either a pause or a different vehicle and a different time pattern, and put the recommendation in writing.
Internally. Written social-media policy signed by every investigator, prohibition on posting case content, a review of deletion practices, a card-handling SOP with hashing and dual backup, and a short training session documented in the personnel file.