While 23-year old Lance Steven Pasalich was working for a land management company in Shasta County as a seasonal forestry technician responsible for conducting large surveys to prevent wildfires, he suffered a slip and injured his knee.
After his injury, the land management company’s workers’ compensation insurance provided Pasalich with temporary total disability benefits and treatment. Temporary total disability benefits and treatment are allocated to injured workers to help them as they recover from their injury and are able to return to work or until they receive a permanent disability rating.
A condition of these benefits is additional work or income earned must be reported; Pasalich was told this several times.
Investigators discovered Pasalich had begun work as a forestry technician with a different company but failed to report his return to the workforce. As such he was collecting his earned pay and disability checks. In total, he collected over $8,600 from disability to which he was not entitled. The claim could have cost the insurer over $55,000 if Pasalich had not been caught
working.
Pasalich was arraigned on September 24, 2020 for multiple felony counts of insurance fraud and grand theft. The Shasta county District Attorney’s Office will be prosecuting the case.
