Louisiana's Supreme Court has settled a long-running workers' comp fraud question, ruling that lying to get benefits cancels them only from that point forward - not from the date of the original injury.
The June 29, 2026 decision resolves a split between two Louisiana appellate circuits and gives insurers and claims teams a single standard to apply statewide.
The case traces back to a work-related car accident on June 30, 2021. The employee reported the crash to his employer, Smitty's Supply, Inc., that same day but did not report any injuries. He was terminated two days later, then reported neck and back injuries through an attorney and filed a workers' comp claim, saying Smitty's had not paid wage benefits or authorized treatment.
The problem surfaced in a March 3, 2022 deposition. The employee testified he went to the emergency room at North Oaks Medical Center two days after the accident, got an x-ray, and was told to stay off work. Medical records showed none of that was true - he had never been treated at North Oaks for injuries from the accident.
The workers' compensation judge rejected his explanation that he simply confused the dates with his many other North Oaks visits. The judge found he "willfully made false statements in his deposition for the purpose of obtaining workers' compensation benefits," a violation of La. R.S. 23:1208. He lost his right to benefits from March 3, 2022 onward and was fined $1,000, payable to the Kids Chance Scholarship Fund, Louisiana Bar Foundation.
The judge's ruling cut both ways, though. Before the false statement, the employee had been found temporarily totally disabled for 12 weeks and was awarded $6,437.40 in indemnity benefits and $1,251.00 in medical expenses. Smitty's, for its part, was penalized for its own delays: $5,000 in attorney's fees for failing to pay indemnity benefits, $5,000 for failing to authorize medical care, and $2,000 for failing to authorize the employee's choice of physician, on top of $2,000 in penalties for each of three separate violations under La. R.S. 23:1201(F).
Smitty's appealed, pushing for full retroactive forfeiture back to the accident date. The First Circuit rejected that argument, sticking with its own precedent that forfeiture runs forward from the lie, not backward to the injury. Smitty's then took the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court, arguing a conflicting Fifth Circuit ruling supported retroactive forfeiture.
The state's highest court disagreed with Smitty's and sided with the First Circuit's approach. Reading the statute's forfeiture and restitution provisions together, the justices found the law only lets insurers recover fraudulently obtained benefits up until the fraud is discovered - it does not erase benefits an employee legitimately earned before lying. The court formally overruled the conflicting Fifth Circuit decision.
For claims teams and insurers handling Louisiana workers' comp files, the takeaway is straightforward: proven fraud cuts off benefits from the date of the misrepresentation, not the date of injury. That removes the guesswork created by the prior circuit split and gives a single rule to apply across the state.
