CO House Passes Bill Limiting Admissibility of Surveillance Video. Could Missouri and Kansas Be Next?

In a previous blog post, we reported about a bill in the Colorado House of Representatives that would restrict the ability of employers/insurers to conduct surveillance.  On March 8, 2010, the House passed an amended version of the bills, sending it to the Colorado Senate.

The amended bill, HB1012 changes several provisions of the original bill.  The original bill would have required employers or insurers to have evidence of fraud before they could conduct surveillance, otherwise they would face penalties of up to $1000 per day for every day they conducted surveillance.  The amended bill removes the penalties, and the requirement of a reasonable belief of fraud.  Instead, the focus has shifted to admissibility of the video evidence in an administrative hearing.  If the surveillance is conducted in an intimidating or harassing manner, the evidence can be excluded.  Also, the measure retains the original provision that the investigator, if questioned by their subject, must admit they are spying and for whom, otherwise the video is inadmissible.  

The change in focus of this bill from directly penalizing the employer/insurer to restricting the admissibility of the evidence is a significant shift.  It reflects the intent of the legislators to prohibit intrusive and abusive investigative practices.  While the concept is laudable, it will probably face stiff opposition in the Senate.  If it does eventually pass, it should be a benefit for injured employees as it will hopefully restrict some of the questionable surveillance tactics of insurers and their investigators.  As noted in our earlier post, hopefully this will start a trend which will lead to similar measures in other states, such as Kansas and Missouri.