Michelle Janet Lias was a food services worker with the Corona/Norco Unified School District. She claimed she sustained an injury to the lower right side of her back on June 11, 2013, when she picked up a box of frozen burritos.
She received total workers’ compensation benefits of $4,450.43 between June 17 and November 12, 2013. An additional $13,740.60 was also paid out for her medical expenses during that period.
On October 12, 18, and 20, 2013, an insurance investigator recorded three clandestine videos of defendant. In those videos, defendant spent an extended amount of time in a car driving, she went to a pumpkin patch event, she bent down and tied her shoes, she walked without a limp, she carried a package to her car, and she sat in a casino gambling.
On November 12, 2013, the defendant’s treating physician changed his opinion after viewing the videos. The physician said defendant was “milking it.” On the same date, he issued a supplemental orthopedic report in which he wrote that defendant was not disabled and should return to work.
Lias pled guilty to fraudulently making a material statement and representation for the purpose of obtaining compensation. (Ins. Code, § 187.14, subd. (a)(4); count 1.) The People filed a request for restitution in an aggregate amount of $45,747.23, itemized as follows: salary payments of $9,902.69, medical expenses of $15,116.60, clandestine investigation in the amount of $7,651.60, photocopying in the amount of $3,050.80, bill review expenses of $1,312.14, defense fees of $5,859.21, and deposition expenses of $2,854.19.
The court granted defendant three years of summary probation and later imposed victim restitution in the amount of $35,525.08. The court denied restitution for photocopying, bill review, and defense fees. On appeal, defendant contends the court abused its discretion in awarding that amount of restitution. The Court of Appeal affirmed the restitution order in the unpublished case of People v Lias.
Generally speaking, restitution awards are vested in the trial court’s discretion and will be disturbed on appeal only when the appellant has shown an abuse of discretion. Even though the trial court has broad discretion in making a restitution award, that discretion is not unlimited. While it is not required to make an order in keeping with the exact amount of loss, the trial court must use a rational method that could reasonably be said to make the victim whole, and may not make an order which is arbitrary or capricious. When there is a factual and rational basis for the amount of restitution ordered by the trial court, no abuse of discretion will be found by the reviewing court.
“Here, the court acted well within its discretion by implicitly determining that defendant had never suffered an injury; thus, its restitutionary award of all wages and medical expenses incurred as a result of defendant’s faked injury is supported by the record. This is regardless of the date reflected in the complaint and in defendant’s plea. Indeed, the clandestine videos showed that defendant had been capable of performing tasks as early as October 12, 2013, that she was reporting to her physician she could not do.”