“They said they have video of me.”

Two different kinds of video

Surveillance the carrier had made of you. Investigators filming in public places. Lawful, common in cases with high permanent disabilityPD Permanent Disability. Compensation for lasting impairment. A different and much lower weekly rate — 2026 maximum $290/week. exposure or a disputed work status, and discoverable.

Video of the accident itself — the employer’s security camera, a dashcam, a doorbell, a neighboring business. This is the one that disappears, and it is usually the more valuable of the two.

The accident video is urgent

Most systems overwrite on a loop — days to a few weeks. Once it is gone it is gone.

Send a written preservation request today, to your employer and the claims administratorClaims administrator / adjuster The person handling your claim for the insurer or self-insured employer., identifying the date, the time, and the camera location, and asking that the footage be preserved and not overwritten.

Keep the copy. A written preservation request that is ignored is itself evidence, and the failure to preserve after notice can carry consequences.

And ask neighboring businesses directly. A parking lot, a loading dock, or a street-facing camera two doors down has caught more work injuries than most people expect.

Getting the surveillance of you

Ask for it in writing. Then ask again through formal discovery if it is not produced.

Ask for the whole thing, not the excerpt. Investigators film hours and produce minutes. The unedited footage frequently shows what the edit omits — that you took twenty minutes to load the car, that you were limping between the useful clips, that the “activity” lasted ninety seconds.

And ask for the investigator’s report and log, not only the video.

Why the disclosure deadline matters so much

Discovery generally closes at the mandatory settlement conference, and evidence not disclosed there is generally inadmissible.

Which means the classic scenario people fear — being confronted at trial with video nobody had seen — is largely prevented by the rule, provided someone insists on it. Insisting is the point.

What actually gets used, and the real lesson

Not the footage of you smiling. Everyone in pain smiles sometimes, and one clip is one moment.

What gets used is a contradiction with something you said. Which is why describing your limitations accurately — including good days — protects you far better than describing them at their worst. A record that says “variable, worse with activity, three or four bad days a week” is not contradicted by any video. More on this.