December 16, 2024 • 35 mins
Investigative Techniques and Best Practices Defending Claims with Jim Anderson
Shane Dawson of Dinsmore and Shohl, LLP and Jennifer White of Peterson White, LLP interview Jim Anderson, of Infoquest/Command. In this episode, Jim discusses the different types of investigative tools, tips and tricks for obtaining the best results and other concerns employers and carriers have with regard to the defense of claim through investigative techniques.
To learn more about DRI and the Workers' Compensation Committee visit www.DRI.org.
#DRILawyer
#DRICommunity
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome back to another episode of Conversations, a podcast developed
through dri where we discussed the world of workers' compensation,
exploring issues involving occupational injuries, treatment, claims, management, and litigation,
as well as future trends and emerging issues in this
area of law. My name is Jennifer White, and I
(00:39):
am here with Shane Dawson, a partner with Dinsmore and
Shull in Ohio. We are delighted to have Jim Anderson
of Infoquest Command with us today to talk about investigations
of workers' compensation claims. Jim was a founding partner and
president of Infoquest Information Services prior to joining Command in
(01:01):
twenty twenty three. Infoquest is a full service workers compensation, insurance, defense,
and business information services firm. Formerly, Jim was a claim
director and account executive with Equefax Atlanta, Georgia. He's a
graduate of the Ohio State University and a frequent speaker
at industry events. Today, Jim will talk about the different
(01:22):
types of investigative options available to employers, as well as
the best time to employ an investigator on your claim.
Jim Anderson, Welcome to Conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Thank you very much, and I'm pleased to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So Jim, I guess we'll start with some full disclosure
that you and I have known each other for a
long time. But for a lot of the listeners for
this podcast, can you just give them a little sense
of your background and training and investigative work.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Sure. I started back in college studying accounting and did
not like it at all, and I took an elective
and it was criminal justice, and I thought, now this
is something I'm more interested in. And when I got
out of school, I really wanted to get into like
the government type of thing, maybe doing some dignitary protection
(02:14):
or something like that secret service. But from the time
you get into college, you get out, you mature an age,
and all of a sudden living somebody else's life didn't
sound as fun as I thought. So I ended up
starting with Equifax, and everybody knows them for the credit
reporting agency and they are, but back when I started,
they had a big, large insurance servicing arm. So I
(02:36):
got hired in there as an investigator and then was
promoted to a claims director and then an account manager
and great resources and a fortune five hundred company like
that for education training and you know, fast tracking in
the career, and then all of a sudden they decided
they weren't going to pursue that business unit anymore and
(02:58):
just go after the automated products, which is the credit reporting.
They have some claims underwriting tools and things like that,
but it was all automated. This is pre internet, so
this was this was really forward thinking on their part.
So we started Infoquest five of us back in ninety four,
thinking like, let's see all it goes, maybe last couple
of years and figure out real jobs. And thirty years later,
(03:21):
you know, we're still still at it and it's been
very fruitful. Learned a lot over the years. A lot
of it, you know, we go to different like classes
and things like that, but a lot of it we
end up teaching it and hiring and training our own
people so they kind of do it the way we
think is best.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So with the with thirty years of Infoquest, and obviously
your your work has expanded from those original five that started.
What what states are you now operating in and covering? Well?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We joined Command in twenty twenty three to expand our
reach and it was just you know, a good opportunity
to compete more on a national level. So command is
national and there's so many things that we can do
now from an internal desktop unit for lack of a
better word, but an intelligence unit that they can do
through the internet resources that you don't need people in
(04:21):
the field and that type of thing, medical canvases that
we'll talk about later, social media background investigations, that type
of thing, and then the field. We have investigators throughout
the country and it's been a real, you know, good
experience to join and take on some of these other
professionals and their ideas and what there are experiences that's
(04:43):
worked for them, and so proud to say we are national.
So if somebody has a need anywhere in the US,
we have them covered, whereas before I would have to
find a partner for him.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
So do you find in working in different states like
that now at JIM, do you find that the type
of investigations differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction or are they
pretty much the same across the board.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I would say they're pretty much the same. And there's
certain places like California that is really big on doing
early investigation. AoE Coe arose of unemployment, the course of
employment where you're getting out there and I think we'll
talk about that in just a minute too. But for
the most part, you're talking about the traditional services. You know,
we're able to do a lot, you know, through internet resources,
(05:31):
So we're doing social media, we're still doing the surveillance
demanded kind of a newer thing. It's not brand new,
but it's still newer would be the unmanned or static
camera or remote camera, depending on who you're talking to
and some of those resources. But honestly, it's pretty much
the same. There's not a whole lot going on one
jurisdiction or another. But you do need to know the
(05:52):
laws of your area that you're working in and make
sure that whatever you do on an investigative front, you
maintain integrity and ethics.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And at what point should carriers and defense attorneys make
the determination to hire an investigator in a case?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, real good one. And boy, if you knew that,
and you solve a lot of problems. But typically you're
going to have your red flags, right, You're going to
have maybe a labor issue going on, And okay, now
Joe's sawf tips leads rumors. I always say the number
one red flag to me is an examiner intuition you know,
(06:32):
a lot of people in our industry have been doing
this a long time and they just get that gut instinct.
It's like YouTube getting in front of a group and
looking at a file and saying, oh boy, we got
a problem. Hearing the new person's like, what do you
mean we got a p I don't know what you're
talking about. It's just your instincts and your experience tells
you that. But you know, people that live their claim
people that hide change of address, never around anything, is
(06:57):
a red flag. There's a whole host of them out
up there that can be a reason. But my typically
I just like to say tips leads, rumors, or your
intuition or anybody that stays off longer than they should,
because that's one of the problems with the worker's comp
system everywhere is it really promotes there's so many hands
in the cookie jar that the claimant turns into a pond, right,
(07:20):
and they're just just wait to your next doctor appointment
three months. We'll see what the doctor says, if you
can go back to work, Oh okay. It's like you know,
kid getting out of school for a while. So I
think there's pretty close to the same with some little variations.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Maybe what different types of tools do you have available
to use when you're investigating a worker's compensation claim.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, first and foremost, like if we go like back
in time to today, like back when Shane and I started,
you know, the cameras were like a TV news crew.
You had this big camera and this attached recording device.
Battery lasted ten minutes if you're lucky. And then we
got the h the camquarders where it was all in
one right, but it was there were light, it was
(08:06):
a VHS tape, it was a big shoulder thing or
you know, you're trying to stay concealed out there while
you're filming people, right, So and then they've now you
see the camquorders. They just fit right in the palm
of your hand. They're four K, you know, really high definition.
They have really good zoom. But the one thing that's
interesting is like the zoom, if you go maybe thirty optical,
(08:29):
maybe one or two more, you know, it's great, but
once you go into like a digital like fifty times,
then all of a sudden it's all pixelated and washed. Okay,
so there are some limitations there, but even so, you
want to be as close as you can to the
claimant activity without being compromised. But the other thing that
we have, you know, we used to have so many
different gadgets, you know, a camera and a pen, a
(08:50):
camera and a pager. Nobody has pagers anymore, very few.
We'll put them in a briefcase, we put them in
a gym bag, anything like that. Well, now you know
smartphone technology, iPads, all that stuff. We have some cameras
that are ray bands that have a little camera in it.
So it's so much better. I remember a quick story.
(09:10):
We first got these pens out of China and they
were great. You just clicked the button, you put it
in your shirt collar there or your shirt pocket there,
and you just film. But you couldn't see what you're filming.
So you're just kind of aiming and hoping you got
the guy right. So a couple things. The first guy
we got was playing racketball, and the first day we
went out there were all excited. We got this great
(09:32):
film the guy playing rack ball. Look at the video,
just his feet, you know, never got to see him.
So we got him. Then we went back out and
got it right. But you can't you're not looking through
a viewfinder, so you know, and then these pens they
took really good video but we could not figure out
to save us and a lot of professionals that we
inquired could not save that video. But it was a
(09:55):
USB drive. You unscrewed the pan you stuck in your computer,
you can see it. So the joke was, here's your
video of your claimant and your souvenir camera pen. We
had no other way to give them the evidence, so
we just kept buying them. But now we have so
much technology, the ability to gather information and through our
web portal, get it to you and the claims examiner
(10:17):
and the employer and the medical practitioners, not real time,
but within a real short period, like if we get
video today, you might see by tomorrow. That way you
can collaborate with actual intelligence, not hearing what we said,
but seeing what information we've developed and have for you
and your defense. So that's great. All those different newer
(10:38):
technology tools.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
About things like medical canvas. That's a that comes up
a lot in my cases. I know, as far as
workers compensation, we're always looking to find out where this
person went. How difficult are those or what kind of
tools do you use to find.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That Yeah, well that's a service that there's no central
repository that you can just plug in and look, you
have to get on the phone. You have to contact
the facility, and you have to solicit cooperation from whoever
answers that call. That's not normal to their daily job duties.
So you have to kill them with kindness. You have
to ensure the accuracy because you know you're off by
(11:17):
a name, or they missed and type something in. They
said they don't have records when there is. So that's
a really good service, but it is a bit labor insensitive.
I know people think you just do it and there's
fifteen canvases, but you have to have a pretty tactful
approach to get cooperation. And then sometimes they'll try to
hide behind and hip us. So anytime you have a
(11:39):
release going in, that helps them give us more information.
So I always saying to medical canvas, at worst you're
going to get acknowledgment that they have treatment. At best
they'll give you the specific dates in the department. Because
if you have a claim for an orthopedic issue and
you find out they have this, you know three day
hospital stay that hey, what's that all about? And then
(12:01):
you find out it was for maternity or something like that.
It's not really germane to the client. Would be nice
to know that ahead of time. So we do our
best to get everything we can without violating any hip
or rules or putting anybody in a compromising position. And
we check not just hospitals, urgent cares, ahmed therapy pharmacies.
Pharmacies are great because that usually leads you to where
(12:24):
other providers are, and most people, except for the online ones,
are going to shop somewhat close to home.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
What's the benefit of using a service like you instead
of just using your defense council's paralegal staff to call
around what they do in medical canvas.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Well, that's really good if you have the staff and
the resources to do that, of course, you know, but
I think what we offer as we have a dedicated
unit that has the time to, you know, get these
work quickly and return with the information. And that's what
it comes down to. I don't want to make it
sound like it's not a hard thing to do. It's
just you have to contact people, you have to wait
(13:03):
for calls back a lot of times, you have to
be a little bit persistent. But the second you push
too hard and these people shut you off. So you know,
we try to think you need a little tack when
you're doing that. But yeah, no, you can definitely do
that yourself. That's not something I don't think you need
to be like a licensed private investigator to do. Now.
You don't want to send people out there doing surveillance
and things like that because then you might cross some
(13:25):
legal issues. But whenever I whenever somebody tells me I
saw them out there, I got I said, okay, get
the video. Then we'll get it to you know, you
or Shane and we can decide then if it's something
that can be used or it was just off limits
we can't. So if that makes sense, definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
So you talked a little bit about AoE COE interviews.
Can you explain what that is and talk a little.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Bit about that. Yeah, And it's just you know, you
have to have names for things, right, medical canvas, social
media search, AoE CUE and it's for a rows out
of employment, the course of employment mean anything was the
injury during their job or did happened on the weekend?
Were they done working and they went and played softball
and get hurt those type of things. But when I
(14:09):
think of an AoE cowe. The first thing that we'd
like to do, and I'll give you an example this
too in a second. But the first thing we like
to do is go out and interview the injured worker.
We've even gone into the hospital. We don't go in
there with a big bright light and interrogate them. We
just want to get information, to find out what happened,
(14:29):
get the baseline facts so they don't migrate and change
down the road. You know, injuries always migrate, right, so
you know you're thinking, like, you know, six weeks later ago,
now it's my neck too. It's like we talked to you,
you said it wasn't your neck, it was only your
low back. So we interview them. We get all the
events leading up to, during, and after, what body parts
(14:49):
were affected, what body part parts were not affected. We
get a current signed hippo release right there. This is
perfect world stuff because they can say no, they don't
have to. The idea is try to get to them
before they lawyer up in that type of thing where
you can't. And again, we're just trying to get information,
the truth, that's all. So we're not like trying to
(15:09):
intimidate them. We're very kind, very polite. We document all
this and recorded conversation either audio or even video, and
then we also cover their activities, their medical providers, any
medications that are on, and anything else that we can't
find about, just who they are and what their daily
(15:30):
life is. All that stuff may or may not be Germane.
The medical providers certainly can be. But you know, later
down the road you might want to do surveillance. You
remember the guy said he likes to golf, and now
he can't, you know what. Somehow the guys, I'll go
and then the next step would be to interview witnesses.
All right, so anybody that has any information to that
(15:53):
specific loss, what they were doing, any other problems or
issues that we need to be aware of. We went
into a big maker and we had a whole bunch
of people getting hurt. So we went in there and
we sat in the conference room at the plant and
one by one and we got to the bottom. Not
one of them was hurt. They said they had such
a problem with their supervisor that they had no other recourse.
(16:16):
That's the way they felt. So in that sense, we
saved the company by identifying the real problem. And then
they could work it from the labor management standpoint, and
then if you want to take it the next step.
So I always do things in steps because you don't
want to jump in there both beat first and say geez,
we did all this work, incurred more costs, didn't help
us out at all. So then a really strong tool
(16:39):
is to do in incident reenactment. This is not forensic engineering.
This is not super high expensive you know engineering. We
just tried to recreate what happened based on what the
injured worker said happened. And is that possible? And it's
amazing how many injuries happened and the only place in
the plant that doesn't have a camera, right, So what
(17:01):
we do is we recreate. We recreate that. And an
example this is we had a guy that broke his hand. Okay,
and I'm not a doctor, but I could see the
X ray and say, yeah, that guy's got a broken hand,
no question about it. Well, he was tarping the trailer
and when he was pulling the rope, the rope got
caught a little bit and snapped his hand. He said, well,
(17:23):
I don't know about you guys. I don't know the
first thing about tarp and the trailer. Never heard of it,
never done it in my life. So we go on
site to where this happened. We had interviewed the injured
worker and he told us exactly what happened, So then
we recreated that so tarp and the trailer has taking
a rope over a semi trailer and it pulls the
tarp across the top so trash doesn't blow out the
(17:44):
back when they're driving down the freeway. So he said,
he wraps the rope around his hands, he pulls the
rope down. It snapped his bone in his hand. It
made sense to me. We shipped that off to a
doctor just to look at and he says, oh, yeah,
no way in the world does the type of break
we have happen from that mechanism. So that claim stopped
(18:05):
before it started. And you're talking about potential surgery, therapy,
time off work, so quite a bit of savings just
going out there and trying to figure out what happened.
So it's a really good tool.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I was going to ask you about that because that
the whole idea of doing incident reenactment is something I
haven't I haven't personally seen, but I've heard about it.
And you know, I'm wondering in a case like you
described with this, you know, more of an orthopedic injury.
Have you seen any occasions where you could do that, say,
(18:41):
for like concussion injuries, which seem to be on the
rise in terms of frequency.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
It's a really good question. The only thing that we
can do is go out and try to show what happened,
you know, And you do that when I say it's
not forensic engineering. We do take like force and measurements
and weights and things like that, and you try to
see if that's possible that that type of thing could
have happened. And then, unfortunately, that's all we can do,
(19:09):
and then we have to pass on, you know, to
the medical practitioners do pining on it, and then of
course you to tie that all in and argue your case.
But I've had some catastrophic claims that you just were
swear legit on paper and you get out there. We've
had bad burns that we get out there and I'm like, gosh,
how did this happen? You know? And then you get
(19:29):
a horse play defense and things like that. So I
want to mention one other very large I won't name
any names, but soft drink for so you get the
idea how big some of those soft drink companies are.
They started a program where they went out and it
didn't matter whether it was a bad car accident or
a beasting, but they wanted to go out and do
(19:51):
initial interviews and all that, and that particular employer saw
reduction and all claim count all claim costs across the board,
lost time days, first reports of injury. Because the other
thing that you, you know, you benefit out of something
like this is your presence and that even though you're
really nice and kind and you're not challenging and you're
(20:12):
not interrogating, you're just asking questions getting information. We might
ask the same question three times like you, just because
to see if the answer is the same. But you
have that subliminal message that you're being detted. So what
it typically does is kind of reduces that I better
not go off for hunting season this year because they're
going to come in and you know, out me. So
(20:35):
it's some really really good stuff. Gosh, there was a
couple guys that burned each other at a mechanical shop
and I finally, after going through that, I just left
at one of the guys I said, okay, what in
the world do you guys do here that could have
caused this? And the guy said, we sometimes shoot brake
fluid and lighted. It's like a torch, and it happened
(20:56):
to hit the guy and caught him on fire. Unfortunately
he was all right, but it was a bad claim.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So maybe similar to doing some of these on site
where you're trying to do a reenactment and see, okay,
how in the world did this ever happen? Do you
guys ever go out and just do the video say
of the job description to use that to as a
as a help either for an administrative law judge, a
(21:25):
hearing officer, or even a doctor so that they have
a better understanding of what was this person actually doing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, one hundred percent, Shane, and this is something that
we kind of have done a long time ago. And
knowing Shane for a long time, one of the things
that bothered me early in my career is when we
would get good surveillance evidence of somebody that clearly the
person wasn't disabled, and then when we go to get
it adjudicated, and whoever was the hearing officer, the administry
(22:00):
of low judge, the judge whatever. You know, they didn't
let that evidence argue itself, right, you're arguing it, but
they're still going back to the medical So one of
the things we thought was how can we strengthen the
evidence that we supply. One thing is to compare the
activity that they're doing to the physical requirements of their job.
And written job descriptions are great, right, but the problem
(22:23):
with the written job description is it still doesn't define
the widgets in their world. Right, So you can read
that and you're hoping the reader is getting the same
picture you're trying to articulate, but when you put it
on video, you can't miss the message. So I look
at a video job description is you have the movie.
(22:44):
You have somebody audio explained in the movie. And it
might be somebody in the video, or it might be
you and your defense. So you have the movie somebody
explaining what you're watching. And I say that kind of
in jest, because you know, when you're watching a movie
with somebody, you're like, I don't get it and you
and you have to explain it vice versa. So that
and then you have the written job description, which is
(23:05):
the book. So this way we have a really clear information.
And I think the most important thing that we can
do is get those video job descriptions to the doctor
because every claim starts with what you have an incident
and they go to the doctor. So the doctor's hearing
three things. They're hearing about, you know, number one, how
bad the incident was and how much pain they're in
(23:27):
and how bad they're hurt. Right then they also hear
about how hard their job is. And that's all the
doctor's hearing, just what the claimant tells them. They don't
get any other information unless we supply it. We would
love to grab the doctor say hey, come on, I'm
gonna show you this. They're not coming, so we take
the video and take it to them. We bring the
plant or the location or whatever to the doctor. Now
(23:50):
they know what the physical requirements of that job are.
So we could talk about this this whole entire podcast.
But Shane, you'll know this, but it's the same thing.
Every city has a you know, transit right, So we
we had in Ohio, we had the Central Aiso Transit
Authority was having a lot of knee claims and it
(24:13):
just was viral and it didn't make any sense. Why
would all of a sudden they have all these knee
claims because one guy got it and the rest of
him started complaining about it. So what we did was
we filmed how to operate you know, a bus, a bus,
transit bus, right, they're all the same in every town, right,
pretty much, So we did that, and the truth is
(24:35):
those things drive easier than a Cadillac. They're really easy
to maneuver. You know, it's intimidating because they're big, but
they're really easy to operate. All these ergonomics, air ride seats.
You're riding on the bus if you've ever been in
a public bus, and they're bouncing in the back a
little bit, but the driver is like on air. They're
like on a cloud. So this particular World Camp manager
(24:57):
wanted every single adjudicator to see that video time it again.
So they just always submitted that with their information to
their defense. And after a while, you know, all the
adjudicators and that jurisdiction were pretty sure they knew what
the job was, so they weren't getting the wol pulled
over their eyes. So it's really good stuff. It just
(25:17):
brings everything to life and you don't ever fabricate it's
just the truth. But the advantage to the employer too
is that not only do they have that job description
for the defense of that claim, it is now theirs
to use for whatever they want. Safety training. And this
is a real important point too for anybody considering this
(25:37):
is whoever's doing these videos needs to have the safety
person and a supervisor president because once it's on TV,
you know it's out there. So you want to make
sure like there's nothing that is going to come back
and bite you that shouldn't be. You know, it could
be just misinformation or something like that, but you know,
(25:58):
you have to be very careful that you're doing everything
the correct and ergonomic and the way they train in
that location. And if you're an employer and they're not
doing that, or you do have some real serious safety concerns,
then that comes to light because those are the type
of things that you know, upper management they want to know,
(26:18):
but they don't always like the idea of putting a
bunch of money to fix stuff. But if they don't know,
they can't fix it. And I think sometimes that happens,
like I didn't want to say it thing because they're
not going to be happy about that.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Well, good point.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
One thing my clients are always always concerned about is
cost claim costs? How do you ensure that the clients
are getting value out of your work? I guess a
good example would be, like, what percentage of your investigations
result in evidence that's usable either in court or to
move the case to resolution.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, great question, and you know it's such a hard
thing the answer, because we're only as good as the
candidate that we can watch. And then from there it's like,
what's the area is a conducive for surveillancers that are
really rural and wooded? Is it? You know, what are
your vantage points and those type of things? But if
(27:16):
the you know, requests pick a good candidate, the chances
are we're going to get information that's going to help
their claim. And it doesn't always mean we're going to
move the claim. It couldn't support the claim too right,
And then now you know, and you can manage it
from a different you know angle. But if we're going
to do we study this. So if we do one
(27:37):
random day of surveillance, you've got about a forty seven
percent chance of getting video of that person. And I'll argue,
of all our data analytics, that's one that's probably inflated
a little bit because they're not always random days. A
lot of times we have a medical appointment, or we
pick them up from work and see if they do
something after. Maybe they're working might duty or modified duty
(27:58):
offsite or something, so you have a better chance of
seeing them and getting video. If we go to two
days surveillance, your forty five seven percent goes up to
sixty five percent. So I usually tell people like, you know,
it's like putting a dollar in a slot machine, pretty
much knowing you lost a dollar for putting two in
and saying, hey, I got a decent chance of winning.
(28:19):
If we go up to three and four days, your
odds a video about eighty five percent. So we're going
to see them, and we're going to be able to
know whether we're getting you information or the claim that's
capable beyond restrictions. So then you have diminishing return set in.
I mean, what's enough? You always say, I know you
both know that one day the other side is going
(28:40):
to argue, yeah, I had a good day, and then
you say, well, if you have a good day, can
you come in and work that day? And but you know,
typically you want to get a couple of days to
show that they're capable. And another thing the other side.
I think we're going to talk about testifying and things
like that, but you know, you just want to, you know,
fill those gaps as you can. But the thing is
(29:02):
either cane or can't do it. I mean, I get
it if there's a hurricane down south and you know
you just got to get heroic and do what you
need to do to survive and whatever. But I'm talking
day to day physical activity. That's like, look, if you're hurt,
you shouldn't be out golfing. Okay, that's not therapeutic, that's injurious.
(29:23):
But so having said that, you know your investigators are professionals.
They should be all right. And there's no higher praise
I can give someone than to call you a professional
in your field. So we need to rely on those people.
We need to trust their instincts, and they need to
be honest. If they're going to be able to get
us what we're looking for or whether we shouldn't, we
(29:45):
need to consider other options. So anytime a bill starts
escalating and you're getting nowhere, you know that should never happen.
And one of the benefits of communication is stopping that
from happen. So by keeping all party updated throughout the
course of a surveillance investigation, everybody knows where we're at.
There's no surprises. You see the evidence along the way.
(30:08):
You know where we're at investment wise, and whether or
not it makes sense to continue or stop. And just
because it's not hot right now, maybe it is in
another six weeks. If they're not improving, you revisit it. So,
you know, hope that answers the question.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, So, Jim, with all these different things that we've
talked about, you know, there's the canvassing, the backgrounds, the
actual surveillance that might be done, interviews, How often in
your experience do these things lead to you having to
actually testify about, you know, what you guys did, whether
(30:46):
it's in court or a hearing room.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Okay, yeah, you know, and it depends on where you're
at in the country. But honestly, our evidence stands on
its own. I mean, occasionally we get to posed and
they ask questions like did you do this? Can you
authenticate it? And that type of thing. But what I'm
really surprised about is I always thought if I was
on the other side, I would really challenge the investigator,
(31:12):
how did you get this information? Were you on private property?
Did you do this lawfully? They never asked that. The
other side seems, more often than not, just to dismiss
the evidence, like, yeah, yeah, I see he's digging a ditch,
but it's not what you think. You know, Dirton, Tennessee
is lighter than it is in Pennsylvania. You know, it's
something like they just don't challenge it, like I think
(31:32):
they probably I would so, but when we do testify,
you know, these guys are trained professionals. They answer the
question that's asked. They're not there to appine. They just simply,
you know, attest to what they documented. And then a
lot of times the will say, well what didn't you document?
And you know, again, every jurisdiction is different. But sometimes,
(31:55):
like for instance, Shane, you know, in Ohio you could
do ten days of surveillance, and if you only want
to argue the one, that's all you're obligated to to
show the other side. I'm not arguing their case. I'm
arguing mind. So you know, sometimes we'll say, well, I
see what happened when they were on camera, what about
when they weren't on camera, it's like, well, I didn't
have advantage points, so I can't answer that question. Sometimes
(32:17):
in our report to be descriptive, well, we'll do things
like you know, we always want to say without obvious
or no obvious signs of or some guest men like
the subject walked approximately forty yards into the store. And
then you know, you'll get an attorney come out and say, well,
how do you know it's forty yards? Did you measure that?
(32:39):
Had a guy that worked for me that was a
former captain of Ohio States football team, so he was testifying.
That was a very question. Did you get out measure
forty yard? And I played football o Io State four years?
Got a pretty good idea of forty yards? Is oh okay,
So that's you know, it's not we're not locking it in.
We're just saying approximately from my experience, it was approximately
forty yards. And then if it's anything we can measure
(33:00):
and weigh, you know, the carry a box out, we'll
get those specs on that type of thing. But so
the investigator really doesn't get challenged too much. It's more
just to authenticate and then some of those type of questions.
But if they are professionals. They either have experience in law,
law enforcement education, wanted to pursue this again profession So
they're going to testify well, they're not going to get trapped.
(33:23):
And we coach them up real well too, and as
you will, before they testify, Have.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
You, personally, Jim, had an occasion where you were questioned
that was particularly memorable to.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
You, Usually the early ones when you're a little bit
nervous about it, to think like, oh gosh, did I
do something wrong? And it was a real It was
a prominent lawyer that worked for our side, the defense
that had switched, and I got in that thing and
and they tried to bully a little bit, but I,
(33:55):
you know, I just stuck by my work and my
what I said. And the attorney that was representing our
side told me, that's exactly what you do. Just answer
it truthful and the best of your knowledge. And I
don't know, it's a perfectly good answer if you don't
know the answer. So I stuck to those principles and
it went well, and do it once and it just
is what it is. It gets a little more intimidating
(34:16):
and jury trials, but will you find out now they're
interested because what we do is got a little more
interest to it. But I think the most dangerous thing
you can do is let the other side rattle you,
you know, get you nervous about what you did, because
is all you did is report the facts. We don't
have a skin in the game. I mean, we're rooting
for you, of course you hired us, but we don't.
(34:38):
We're an unbiased third party ask to document whatever we
see or whatever information we can develop, and that's all
we do.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Well, thank you very much, Jim. Looks like we're out
of time here, so we're gonna go ahead and wrap
it up. If people would like to get in touch
with you, what's the best way for them to reach you.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, you can email me at j Anderson A N
D E R S O N at info quest I
n V dot com. So it's Jay Anderson at I
N F O q U E S t I n
V dot com. So it's info quest short for investigation
(35:23):
dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Okay, great, Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate
having you this very interesting topic.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Mich Thanks, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity
Welcome back to another episode of Conversations, a podcast developed
through dri where we discussed the world of workers' compensation,
exploring issues involving occupational injuries, treatment, claims, management, and litigation,
as well as future trends and emerging issues in this
area of law. My name is Jennifer White, and I
(00:39):
am here with Shane Dawson, a partner with Dinsmore and
Shull in Ohio. We are delighted to have Jim Anderson
of Infoquest Command with us today to talk about investigations
of workers' compensation claims. Jim was a founding partner and
president of Infoquest Information Services prior to joining Command in
(01:01):
twenty twenty three. Infoquest is a full service workers compensation, insurance, defense,
and business information services firm. Formerly, Jim was a claim
director and account executive with Equefax Atlanta, Georgia. He's a
graduate of the Ohio State University and a frequent speaker
at industry events. Today, Jim will talk about the different
(01:22):
types of investigative options available to employers, as well as
the best time to employ an investigator on your claim.
Jim Anderson, Welcome to Conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Thank you very much, and I'm pleased to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So Jim, I guess we'll start with some full disclosure
that you and I have known each other for a
long time. But for a lot of the listeners for
this podcast, can you just give them a little sense
of your background and training and investigative work.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Sure. I started back in college studying accounting and did
not like it at all, and I took an elective
and it was criminal justice, and I thought, now this
is something I'm more interested in. And when I got
out of school, I really wanted to get into like
the government type of thing, maybe doing some dignitary protection
(02:14):
or something like that secret service. But from the time
you get into college, you get out, you mature an age,
and all of a sudden living somebody else's life didn't
sound as fun as I thought. So I ended up
starting with Equifax, and everybody knows them for the credit
reporting agency and they are, but back when I started,
they had a big, large insurance servicing arm. So I
(02:36):
got hired in there as an investigator and then was
promoted to a claims director and then an account manager
and great resources and a fortune five hundred company like
that for education training and you know, fast tracking in
the career, and then all of a sudden they decided
they weren't going to pursue that business unit anymore and
(02:58):
just go after the automated products, which is the credit reporting.
They have some claims underwriting tools and things like that,
but it was all automated. This is pre internet, so
this was this was really forward thinking on their part.
So we started Infoquest five of us back in ninety four,
thinking like, let's see all it goes, maybe last couple
of years and figure out real jobs. And thirty years later,
(03:21):
you know, we're still still at it and it's been
very fruitful. Learned a lot over the years. A lot
of it, you know, we go to different like classes
and things like that, but a lot of it we
end up teaching it and hiring and training our own
people so they kind of do it the way we
think is best.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So with the with thirty years of Infoquest, and obviously
your your work has expanded from those original five that started.
What what states are you now operating in and covering? Well?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We joined Command in twenty twenty three to expand our
reach and it was just you know, a good opportunity
to compete more on a national level. So command is
national and there's so many things that we can do
now from an internal desktop unit for lack of a
better word, but an intelligence unit that they can do
through the internet resources that you don't need people in
(04:21):
the field and that type of thing, medical canvases that
we'll talk about later, social media background investigations, that type
of thing, and then the field. We have investigators throughout
the country and it's been a real, you know, good
experience to join and take on some of these other
professionals and their ideas and what there are experiences that's
(04:43):
worked for them, and so proud to say we are national.
So if somebody has a need anywhere in the US,
we have them covered, whereas before I would have to
find a partner for him.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
So do you find in working in different states like
that now at JIM, do you find that the type
of investigations differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction or are they
pretty much the same across the board.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I would say they're pretty much the same. And there's
certain places like California that is really big on doing
early investigation. AoE Coe arose of unemployment, the course of
employment where you're getting out there and I think we'll
talk about that in just a minute too. But for
the most part, you're talking about the traditional services. You know,
we're able to do a lot, you know, through internet resources,
(05:31):
So we're doing social media, we're still doing the surveillance
demanded kind of a newer thing. It's not brand new,
but it's still newer would be the unmanned or static
camera or remote camera, depending on who you're talking to
and some of those resources. But honestly, it's pretty much
the same. There's not a whole lot going on one
jurisdiction or another. But you do need to know the
(05:52):
laws of your area that you're working in and make
sure that whatever you do on an investigative front, you
maintain integrity and ethics.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And at what point should carriers and defense attorneys make
the determination to hire an investigator in a case?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, real good one. And boy, if you knew that,
and you solve a lot of problems. But typically you're
going to have your red flags, right, You're going to
have maybe a labor issue going on, And okay, now
Joe's sawf tips leads rumors. I always say the number
one red flag to me is an examiner intuition you know,
(06:32):
a lot of people in our industry have been doing
this a long time and they just get that gut instinct.
It's like YouTube getting in front of a group and
looking at a file and saying, oh boy, we got
a problem. Hearing the new person's like, what do you
mean we got a p I don't know what you're
talking about. It's just your instincts and your experience tells
you that. But you know, people that live their claim
people that hide change of address, never around anything, is
(06:57):
a red flag. There's a whole host of them out
up there that can be a reason. But my typically
I just like to say tips leads, rumors, or your
intuition or anybody that stays off longer than they should,
because that's one of the problems with the worker's comp
system everywhere is it really promotes there's so many hands
in the cookie jar that the claimant turns into a pond, right,
(07:20):
and they're just just wait to your next doctor appointment
three months. We'll see what the doctor says, if you
can go back to work, Oh okay. It's like you know,
kid getting out of school for a while. So I
think there's pretty close to the same with some little variations.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Maybe what different types of tools do you have available
to use when you're investigating a worker's compensation claim.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, first and foremost, like if we go like back
in time to today, like back when Shane and I started,
you know, the cameras were like a TV news crew.
You had this big camera and this attached recording device.
Battery lasted ten minutes if you're lucky. And then we
got the h the camquarders where it was all in
one right, but it was there were light, it was
(08:06):
a VHS tape, it was a big shoulder thing or
you know, you're trying to stay concealed out there while
you're filming people, right, So and then they've now you
see the camquorders. They just fit right in the palm
of your hand. They're four K, you know, really high definition.
They have really good zoom. But the one thing that's
interesting is like the zoom, if you go maybe thirty optical,
(08:29):
maybe one or two more, you know, it's great, but
once you go into like a digital like fifty times,
then all of a sudden it's all pixelated and washed. Okay,
so there are some limitations there, but even so, you
want to be as close as you can to the
claimant activity without being compromised. But the other thing that
we have, you know, we used to have so many
different gadgets, you know, a camera and a pen, a
(08:50):
camera and a pager. Nobody has pagers anymore, very few.
We'll put them in a briefcase, we put them in
a gym bag, anything like that. Well, now you know
smartphone technology, iPads, all that stuff. We have some cameras
that are ray bands that have a little camera in it.
So it's so much better. I remember a quick story.
(09:10):
We first got these pens out of China and they
were great. You just clicked the button, you put it
in your shirt collar there or your shirt pocket there,
and you just film. But you couldn't see what you're filming.
So you're just kind of aiming and hoping you got
the guy right. So a couple things. The first guy
we got was playing racketball, and the first day we
went out there were all excited. We got this great
(09:32):
film the guy playing rack ball. Look at the video,
just his feet, you know, never got to see him.
So we got him. Then we went back out and
got it right. But you can't you're not looking through
a viewfinder, so you know, and then these pens they
took really good video but we could not figure out
to save us and a lot of professionals that we
inquired could not save that video. But it was a
(09:55):
USB drive. You unscrewed the pan you stuck in your computer,
you can see it. So the joke was, here's your
video of your claimant and your souvenir camera pen. We
had no other way to give them the evidence, so
we just kept buying them. But now we have so
much technology, the ability to gather information and through our
web portal, get it to you and the claims examiner
(10:17):
and the employer and the medical practitioners, not real time,
but within a real short period, like if we get
video today, you might see by tomorrow. That way you
can collaborate with actual intelligence, not hearing what we said,
but seeing what information we've developed and have for you
and your defense. So that's great. All those different newer
(10:38):
technology tools.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
About things like medical canvas. That's a that comes up
a lot in my cases. I know, as far as
workers compensation, we're always looking to find out where this
person went. How difficult are those or what kind of
tools do you use to find.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That Yeah, well that's a service that there's no central
repository that you can just plug in and look, you
have to get on the phone. You have to contact
the facility, and you have to solicit cooperation from whoever
answers that call. That's not normal to their daily job duties.
So you have to kill them with kindness. You have
to ensure the accuracy because you know you're off by
(11:17):
a name, or they missed and type something in. They
said they don't have records when there is. So that's
a really good service, but it is a bit labor insensitive.
I know people think you just do it and there's
fifteen canvases, but you have to have a pretty tactful
approach to get cooperation. And then sometimes they'll try to
hide behind and hip us. So anytime you have a
(11:39):
release going in, that helps them give us more information.
So I always saying to medical canvas, at worst you're
going to get acknowledgment that they have treatment. At best
they'll give you the specific dates in the department. Because
if you have a claim for an orthopedic issue and
you find out they have this, you know three day
hospital stay that hey, what's that all about? And then
(12:01):
you find out it was for maternity or something like that.
It's not really germane to the client. Would be nice
to know that ahead of time. So we do our
best to get everything we can without violating any hip
or rules or putting anybody in a compromising position. And
we check not just hospitals, urgent cares, ahmed therapy pharmacies.
Pharmacies are great because that usually leads you to where
(12:24):
other providers are, and most people, except for the online ones,
are going to shop somewhat close to home.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
What's the benefit of using a service like you instead
of just using your defense council's paralegal staff to call
around what they do in medical canvas.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Well, that's really good if you have the staff and
the resources to do that, of course, you know, but
I think what we offer as we have a dedicated
unit that has the time to, you know, get these
work quickly and return with the information. And that's what
it comes down to. I don't want to make it
sound like it's not a hard thing to do. It's
just you have to contact people, you have to wait
(13:03):
for calls back a lot of times, you have to
be a little bit persistent. But the second you push
too hard and these people shut you off. So you know,
we try to think you need a little tack when
you're doing that. But yeah, no, you can definitely do
that yourself. That's not something I don't think you need
to be like a licensed private investigator to do. Now.
You don't want to send people out there doing surveillance
and things like that because then you might cross some
(13:25):
legal issues. But whenever I whenever somebody tells me I
saw them out there, I got I said, okay, get
the video. Then we'll get it to you know, you
or Shane and we can decide then if it's something
that can be used or it was just off limits
we can't. So if that makes sense, definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
So you talked a little bit about AoE COE interviews.
Can you explain what that is and talk a little.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Bit about that. Yeah, And it's just you know, you
have to have names for things, right, medical canvas, social
media search, AoE CUE and it's for a rows out
of employment, the course of employment mean anything was the
injury during their job or did happened on the weekend?
Were they done working and they went and played softball
and get hurt those type of things. But when I
(14:09):
think of an AoE cowe. The first thing that we'd
like to do, and I'll give you an example this
too in a second. But the first thing we like
to do is go out and interview the injured worker.
We've even gone into the hospital. We don't go in
there with a big bright light and interrogate them. We
just want to get information, to find out what happened,
(14:29):
get the baseline facts so they don't migrate and change
down the road. You know, injuries always migrate, right, so
you know you're thinking, like, you know, six weeks later ago,
now it's my neck too. It's like we talked to you,
you said it wasn't your neck, it was only your
low back. So we interview them. We get all the
events leading up to, during, and after, what body parts
(14:49):
were affected, what body part parts were not affected. We
get a current signed hippo release right there. This is
perfect world stuff because they can say no, they don't
have to. The idea is try to get to them
before they lawyer up in that type of thing where
you can't. And again, we're just trying to get information,
the truth, that's all. So we're not like trying to
(15:09):
intimidate them. We're very kind, very polite. We document all
this and recorded conversation either audio or even video, and
then we also cover their activities, their medical providers, any
medications that are on, and anything else that we can't
find about, just who they are and what their daily
(15:30):
life is. All that stuff may or may not be Germane.
The medical providers certainly can be. But you know, later
down the road you might want to do surveillance. You
remember the guy said he likes to golf, and now
he can't, you know what. Somehow the guys, I'll go
and then the next step would be to interview witnesses.
All right, so anybody that has any information to that
(15:53):
specific loss, what they were doing, any other problems or
issues that we need to be aware of. We went
into a big maker and we had a whole bunch
of people getting hurt. So we went in there and
we sat in the conference room at the plant and
one by one and we got to the bottom. Not
one of them was hurt. They said they had such
a problem with their supervisor that they had no other recourse.
(16:16):
That's the way they felt. So in that sense, we
saved the company by identifying the real problem. And then
they could work it from the labor management standpoint, and
then if you want to take it the next step.
So I always do things in steps because you don't
want to jump in there both beat first and say geez,
we did all this work, incurred more costs, didn't help
us out at all. So then a really strong tool
(16:39):
is to do in incident reenactment. This is not forensic engineering.
This is not super high expensive you know engineering. We
just tried to recreate what happened based on what the
injured worker said happened. And is that possible? And it's
amazing how many injuries happened and the only place in
the plant that doesn't have a camera, right, So what
(17:01):
we do is we recreate. We recreate that. And an
example this is we had a guy that broke his hand. Okay,
and I'm not a doctor, but I could see the
X ray and say, yeah, that guy's got a broken hand,
no question about it. Well, he was tarping the trailer
and when he was pulling the rope, the rope got
caught a little bit and snapped his hand. He said, well,
(17:23):
I don't know about you guys. I don't know the
first thing about tarp and the trailer. Never heard of it,
never done it in my life. So we go on
site to where this happened. We had interviewed the injured
worker and he told us exactly what happened, So then
we recreated that so tarp and the trailer has taking
a rope over a semi trailer and it pulls the
tarp across the top so trash doesn't blow out the
(17:44):
back when they're driving down the freeway. So he said,
he wraps the rope around his hands, he pulls the
rope down. It snapped his bone in his hand. It
made sense to me. We shipped that off to a
doctor just to look at and he says, oh, yeah,
no way in the world does the type of break
we have happen from that mechanism. So that claim stopped
(18:05):
before it started. And you're talking about potential surgery, therapy,
time off work, so quite a bit of savings just
going out there and trying to figure out what happened.
So it's a really good tool.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I was going to ask you about that because that
the whole idea of doing incident reenactment is something I
haven't I haven't personally seen, but I've heard about it.
And you know, I'm wondering in a case like you
described with this, you know, more of an orthopedic injury.
Have you seen any occasions where you could do that, say,
(18:41):
for like concussion injuries, which seem to be on the
rise in terms of frequency.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
It's a really good question. The only thing that we
can do is go out and try to show what happened,
you know, And you do that when I say it's
not forensic engineering. We do take like force and measurements
and weights and things like that, and you try to
see if that's possible that that type of thing could
have happened. And then, unfortunately, that's all we can do,
(19:09):
and then we have to pass on, you know, to
the medical practitioners do pining on it, and then of
course you to tie that all in and argue your case.
But I've had some catastrophic claims that you just were
swear legit on paper and you get out there. We've
had bad burns that we get out there and I'm like, gosh,
how did this happen? You know? And then you get
(19:29):
a horse play defense and things like that. So I
want to mention one other very large I won't name
any names, but soft drink for so you get the
idea how big some of those soft drink companies are.
They started a program where they went out and it
didn't matter whether it was a bad car accident or
a beasting, but they wanted to go out and do
(19:51):
initial interviews and all that, and that particular employer saw
reduction and all claim count all claim costs across the board,
lost time days, first reports of injury. Because the other
thing that you, you know, you benefit out of something
like this is your presence and that even though you're
really nice and kind and you're not challenging and you're
(20:12):
not interrogating, you're just asking questions getting information. We might
ask the same question three times like you, just because
to see if the answer is the same. But you
have that subliminal message that you're being detted. So what
it typically does is kind of reduces that I better
not go off for hunting season this year because they're
going to come in and you know, out me. So
(20:35):
it's some really really good stuff. Gosh, there was a
couple guys that burned each other at a mechanical shop
and I finally, after going through that, I just left
at one of the guys I said, okay, what in
the world do you guys do here that could have
caused this? And the guy said, we sometimes shoot brake
fluid and lighted. It's like a torch, and it happened
(20:56):
to hit the guy and caught him on fire. Unfortunately
he was all right, but it was a bad claim.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So maybe similar to doing some of these on site
where you're trying to do a reenactment and see, okay,
how in the world did this ever happen? Do you
guys ever go out and just do the video say
of the job description to use that to as a
as a help either for an administrative law judge, a
(21:25):
hearing officer, or even a doctor so that they have
a better understanding of what was this person actually doing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, one hundred percent, Shane, and this is something that
we kind of have done a long time ago. And
knowing Shane for a long time, one of the things
that bothered me early in my career is when we
would get good surveillance evidence of somebody that clearly the
person wasn't disabled, and then when we go to get
it adjudicated, and whoever was the hearing officer, the administry
(22:00):
of low judge, the judge whatever. You know, they didn't
let that evidence argue itself, right, you're arguing it, but
they're still going back to the medical So one of
the things we thought was how can we strengthen the
evidence that we supply. One thing is to compare the
activity that they're doing to the physical requirements of their job.
And written job descriptions are great, right, but the problem
(22:23):
with the written job description is it still doesn't define
the widgets in their world. Right, So you can read
that and you're hoping the reader is getting the same
picture you're trying to articulate, but when you put it
on video, you can't miss the message. So I look
at a video job description is you have the movie.
(22:44):
You have somebody audio explained in the movie. And it
might be somebody in the video, or it might be
you and your defense. So you have the movie somebody
explaining what you're watching. And I say that kind of
in jest, because you know, when you're watching a movie
with somebody, you're like, I don't get it and you
and you have to explain it vice versa. So that
and then you have the written job description, which is
(23:05):
the book. So this way we have a really clear information.
And I think the most important thing that we can
do is get those video job descriptions to the doctor
because every claim starts with what you have an incident
and they go to the doctor. So the doctor's hearing
three things. They're hearing about, you know, number one, how
bad the incident was and how much pain they're in
(23:27):
and how bad they're hurt. Right then they also hear
about how hard their job is. And that's all the
doctor's hearing, just what the claimant tells them. They don't
get any other information unless we supply it. We would
love to grab the doctor say hey, come on, I'm
gonna show you this. They're not coming, so we take
the video and take it to them. We bring the
plant or the location or whatever to the doctor. Now
(23:50):
they know what the physical requirements of that job are.
So we could talk about this this whole entire podcast.
But Shane, you'll know this, but it's the same thing.
Every city has a you know, transit right, So we
we had in Ohio, we had the Central Aiso Transit
Authority was having a lot of knee claims and it
(24:13):
just was viral and it didn't make any sense. Why
would all of a sudden they have all these knee
claims because one guy got it and the rest of
him started complaining about it. So what we did was
we filmed how to operate you know, a bus, a bus,
transit bus, right, they're all the same in every town, right,
pretty much, So we did that, and the truth is
(24:35):
those things drive easier than a Cadillac. They're really easy
to maneuver. You know, it's intimidating because they're big, but
they're really easy to operate. All these ergonomics, air ride seats.
You're riding on the bus if you've ever been in
a public bus, and they're bouncing in the back a
little bit, but the driver is like on air. They're
like on a cloud. So this particular World Camp manager
(24:57):
wanted every single adjudicator to see that video time it again.
So they just always submitted that with their information to
their defense. And after a while, you know, all the
adjudicators and that jurisdiction were pretty sure they knew what
the job was, so they weren't getting the wol pulled
over their eyes. So it's really good stuff. It just
(25:17):
brings everything to life and you don't ever fabricate it's
just the truth. But the advantage to the employer too
is that not only do they have that job description
for the defense of that claim, it is now theirs
to use for whatever they want. Safety training. And this
is a real important point too for anybody considering this
(25:37):
is whoever's doing these videos needs to have the safety
person and a supervisor president because once it's on TV,
you know it's out there. So you want to make
sure like there's nothing that is going to come back
and bite you that shouldn't be. You know, it could
be just misinformation or something like that, but you know,
(25:58):
you have to be very careful that you're doing everything
the correct and ergonomic and the way they train in
that location. And if you're an employer and they're not
doing that, or you do have some real serious safety concerns,
then that comes to light because those are the type
of things that you know, upper management they want to know,
(26:18):
but they don't always like the idea of putting a
bunch of money to fix stuff. But if they don't know,
they can't fix it. And I think sometimes that happens,
like I didn't want to say it thing because they're
not going to be happy about that.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Well, good point.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
One thing my clients are always always concerned about is
cost claim costs? How do you ensure that the clients
are getting value out of your work? I guess a
good example would be, like, what percentage of your investigations
result in evidence that's usable either in court or to
move the case to resolution.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, great question, and you know it's such a hard
thing the answer, because we're only as good as the
candidate that we can watch. And then from there it's like,
what's the area is a conducive for surveillancers that are
really rural and wooded? Is it? You know, what are
your vantage points and those type of things? But if
(27:16):
the you know, requests pick a good candidate, the chances
are we're going to get information that's going to help
their claim. And it doesn't always mean we're going to
move the claim. It couldn't support the claim too right,
And then now you know, and you can manage it
from a different you know angle. But if we're going
to do we study this. So if we do one
(27:37):
random day of surveillance, you've got about a forty seven
percent chance of getting video of that person. And I'll argue,
of all our data analytics, that's one that's probably inflated
a little bit because they're not always random days. A
lot of times we have a medical appointment, or we
pick them up from work and see if they do
something after. Maybe they're working might duty or modified duty
(27:58):
offsite or something, so you have a better chance of
seeing them and getting video. If we go to two
days surveillance, your forty five seven percent goes up to
sixty five percent. So I usually tell people like, you know,
it's like putting a dollar in a slot machine, pretty
much knowing you lost a dollar for putting two in
and saying, hey, I got a decent chance of winning.
(28:19):
If we go up to three and four days, your
odds a video about eighty five percent. So we're going
to see them, and we're going to be able to
know whether we're getting you information or the claim that's
capable beyond restrictions. So then you have diminishing return set in.
I mean, what's enough? You always say, I know you
both know that one day the other side is going
(28:40):
to argue, yeah, I had a good day, and then
you say, well, if you have a good day, can
you come in and work that day? And but you know,
typically you want to get a couple of days to
show that they're capable. And another thing the other side.
I think we're going to talk about testifying and things
like that, but you know, you just want to, you know,
fill those gaps as you can. But the thing is
(29:02):
either cane or can't do it. I mean, I get
it if there's a hurricane down south and you know
you just got to get heroic and do what you
need to do to survive and whatever. But I'm talking
day to day physical activity. That's like, look, if you're hurt,
you shouldn't be out golfing. Okay, that's not therapeutic, that's injurious.
(29:23):
But so having said that, you know your investigators are professionals.
They should be all right. And there's no higher praise
I can give someone than to call you a professional
in your field. So we need to rely on those people.
We need to trust their instincts, and they need to
be honest. If they're going to be able to get
us what we're looking for or whether we shouldn't, we
(29:45):
need to consider other options. So anytime a bill starts
escalating and you're getting nowhere, you know that should never happen.
And one of the benefits of communication is stopping that
from happen. So by keeping all party updated throughout the
course of a surveillance investigation, everybody knows where we're at.
There's no surprises. You see the evidence along the way.
(30:08):
You know where we're at investment wise, and whether or
not it makes sense to continue or stop. And just
because it's not hot right now, maybe it is in
another six weeks. If they're not improving, you revisit it. So,
you know, hope that answers the question.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, So, Jim, with all these different things that we've
talked about, you know, there's the canvassing, the backgrounds, the
actual surveillance that might be done, interviews, How often in
your experience do these things lead to you having to
actually testify about, you know, what you guys did, whether
(30:46):
it's in court or a hearing room.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Okay, yeah, you know, and it depends on where you're
at in the country. But honestly, our evidence stands on
its own. I mean, occasionally we get to posed and
they ask questions like did you do this? Can you
authenticate it? And that type of thing. But what I'm
really surprised about is I always thought if I was
on the other side, I would really challenge the investigator,
(31:12):
how did you get this information? Were you on private property?
Did you do this lawfully? They never asked that. The
other side seems, more often than not, just to dismiss
the evidence, like, yeah, yeah, I see he's digging a ditch,
but it's not what you think. You know, Dirton, Tennessee
is lighter than it is in Pennsylvania. You know, it's
something like they just don't challenge it, like I think
(31:32):
they probably I would so, but when we do testify,
you know, these guys are trained professionals. They answer the
question that's asked. They're not there to appine. They just simply,
you know, attest to what they documented. And then a
lot of times the will say, well what didn't you document?
And you know, again, every jurisdiction is different. But sometimes,
(31:55):
like for instance, Shane, you know, in Ohio you could
do ten days of surveillance, and if you only want
to argue the one, that's all you're obligated to to
show the other side. I'm not arguing their case. I'm
arguing mind. So you know, sometimes we'll say, well, I
see what happened when they were on camera, what about
when they weren't on camera, it's like, well, I didn't
have advantage points, so I can't answer that question. Sometimes
(32:17):
in our report to be descriptive, well, we'll do things
like you know, we always want to say without obvious
or no obvious signs of or some guest men like
the subject walked approximately forty yards into the store. And
then you know, you'll get an attorney come out and say, well,
how do you know it's forty yards? Did you measure that?
(32:39):
Had a guy that worked for me that was a
former captain of Ohio States football team, so he was testifying.
That was a very question. Did you get out measure
forty yard? And I played football o Io State four years?
Got a pretty good idea of forty yards? Is oh okay,
So that's you know, it's not we're not locking it in.
We're just saying approximately from my experience, it was approximately
forty yards. And then if it's anything we can measure
(33:00):
and weigh, you know, the carry a box out, we'll
get those specs on that type of thing. But so
the investigator really doesn't get challenged too much. It's more
just to authenticate and then some of those type of questions.
But if they are professionals. They either have experience in law,
law enforcement education, wanted to pursue this again profession So
they're going to testify well, they're not going to get trapped.
(33:23):
And we coach them up real well too, and as
you will, before they testify, Have.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
You, personally, Jim, had an occasion where you were questioned
that was particularly memorable to.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
You, Usually the early ones when you're a little bit
nervous about it, to think like, oh gosh, did I
do something wrong? And it was a real It was
a prominent lawyer that worked for our side, the defense
that had switched, and I got in that thing and
and they tried to bully a little bit, but I,
(33:55):
you know, I just stuck by my work and my
what I said. And the attorney that was representing our
side told me, that's exactly what you do. Just answer
it truthful and the best of your knowledge. And I
don't know, it's a perfectly good answer if you don't
know the answer. So I stuck to those principles and
it went well, and do it once and it just
is what it is. It gets a little more intimidating
(34:16):
and jury trials, but will you find out now they're
interested because what we do is got a little more
interest to it. But I think the most dangerous thing
you can do is let the other side rattle you,
you know, get you nervous about what you did, because
is all you did is report the facts. We don't
have a skin in the game. I mean, we're rooting
for you, of course you hired us, but we don't.
(34:38):
We're an unbiased third party ask to document whatever we
see or whatever information we can develop, and that's all
we do.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Well, thank you very much, Jim. Looks like we're out
of time here, so we're gonna go ahead and wrap
it up. If people would like to get in touch
with you, what's the best way for them to reach you.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, you can email me at j Anderson A N
D E R S O N at info quest I
n V dot com. So it's Jay Anderson at I
N F O q U E S t I n
V dot com. So it's info quest short for investigation
(35:23):
dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Okay, great, Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate
having you this very interesting topic.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Mich Thanks, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.