California v. Riddles

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Defendant-appellant John Riddles pled guilty to one count of workers' compensation insurance fraud. His conviction grew out of his application for workers' compensation insurance, which fraudulently represented that a number of nurses who had been placed in residential care and skilled-nursing facilities by Riddles' staffing agency were computer programmers. His misrepresentation of the nurses as computer programmers substantially reduced the premium his agency was charged by the workers' compensation insurer that accepted his company's application; accordingly, the trial court required that Riddles pay, as restitution to the insurer, $37,000 in premiums the insurer would have earned in the absence of his misrepresentation. Contrary to his argument on appeal, a workers' compensation insurer could recover, as restitution under Penal Code section 1202.4, the premiums it would have earned in the absence of misrepresentations by an insurance applicant. The fact Riddles may have been able to establish that the Labor Code did not require that he provide workers' compensation coverage for the nurses did not relieve him of responsibility for providing the insurer with a fraudulent application or alter the fact the nurses were covered by the policy he obtained. View "California v. Riddles" on Justia Law