A San Francisco construction company owner and manager are facing multiple felony charges after prosecutors allege they underreported payroll, failed to pay required taxes and insurance premiums, and attempted to deny workers’ compensation benefits to an employee who lost a finger in a workplace accident.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins on Aug. 7 announced that Declan McKevitt and Grace McKevitt, owners and managers of An Dun Construction, were arraigned on charges including workers’ compensation premium fraud and payroll tax fraud. Both pleaded not guilty. Declan McKevitt also faces two additional insurance fraud charges for allegedly making a false statement to deny compensation and discouraging an injured worker from claiming benefits or pursuing a workers’ compensation claim.

According to prosecutors, the alleged scheme came to light after an employee severely injured his hand on a table saw, resulting in an amputated finger. Rather than acknowledge the workplace injury, prosecutors allege Declan McKevitt told the worker to deny that the injury was work-related when seeking medical treatment. He then allegedly denied that the worker was employed by An Dun Construction and claimed the employee was at the jobsite without his knowledge. Payroll records and witness statements reportedly showed that the worker had been employed by the company for approximately seven months. The alleged false denial delayed the injured worker’s benefits for four months.

The case is a reminder that workers’ compensation fraud does not begin and end with injured workers. Employer premium fraud, payroll fraud, misclassification and efforts to improperly deny legitimate claims can deprive workers of benefits while shifting costs onto the workers’ compensation system as a whole. Yet employer fraud routinely receives a fraction of the public attention devoted to allegations of fraud by injured workers. Cases involving employee fraud often generate sensational headlines and feed a broader narrative that workers’ compensation fraud is primarily something committed by claimants.

When an employer allegedly conceals payroll and then attempts to erase an injured employee from its workforce after a catastrophic injury, that deserves at least the same level of scrutiny. Allegations of employer fraud, especially those that directly interfere with an injured workers’ access to benefits, deserve the same attention and scrutiny so often directed at injured workers themselves.

This opinion by the California Applicants' Attorneys Association communications team is republished, with permission, from the CAAA website.