Sick Leave Abuse in Combination with Secondary Employment – Case Study

As was known to his employer, a medium-sized craft business from Solingen, Mr. Mettmann was struggling financially. He was always looking for opportunities to earn extra money, would assist colleagues privately for cash, and regularly performed auxiliary work for various construction companies when needed. His main employer and client of Kurtz Commercial Investigation Agency Wuppertal and Bergisches Land tolerated this considerable workload of his employee—as long as his performance remained satisfactory. And for several years, it did. However, since the end of 2015, Mr. Mettmann’s absences suddenly began to accumulate dramatically—sick notes issued by different doctors from various medical specialties, each accompanied by new descriptions of illnesses.

The company owner, Mr. Ohligs, began to have doubts about the legitimacy of the sick notes as early as the second week of absence. He made inquiries within the company and among acquaintances and learned that his allegedly ill employee had recently been seen working as a roofer on a detached house. Mr. Ohligs immediately contacted our detectives for Solingen and arranged for surveillance of the suspicious employee.

A Side Job? Side Jobs!

Early in the morning, with frost still covering the parked vehicles, our private detectives in Solingen* took up surveillance positions in a quiet residential area. Shortly thereafter, as the very first person to appear, Mr. Mettmann emerged in work clothing in the driveway of his detached house, carrying a car wheel in each hand and loading both into his vehicle. He then retrieved two additional wheels and, followed by our commercial detectives for Solingen, drove to an automotive workshop, which he unlocked using his own key. There, clearly visible from the outside, he independently changed the wheels on his car, locked the business again—which, according to a posted notice, was not scheduled to open for another two hours—and continued on to a construction site in Remscheid. On site, Mr. Mettmann disappeared into the drywall section of the building for four hours. Due to access controls, the investigators of our detective agency for Solingen were unfortunately unable to verify inside whether the target person was performing work there. However, the assumption was very, very obvious, and in any potential court proceedings, the employee on sick leave would likely have difficulty convincing a judge otherwise.

When Mr. Mettmann finally left the construction site in Remscheid, he did not return home but instead drove back to the automotive workshop he had visited that morning. There, he put on overalls and carried out repairs on various vehicles until closing time—a job for which, according to his résumé, he had no qualifications whatsoever. After the workshop closed, the target person finally returned home and our detectives for Solingen concluded their assignment.

Surveillance by Our Detectives in Düsseldorf

The following morning, Mr. Mettmann—again dressed in work clothing—got into the same vehicle as the previous day together with his wife and son and took the child to school. Monitoring the residential building beforehand proved difficult, as the parking situation combined with the typically heightened sensitivity of residents in such neighborhoods forced our detectives in Solingen to leave a small surveillance gap in the form of a side street, which could not be covered by an additional operative within the allocated budget. Nevertheless, tracking the target person was successful, as he passed one of our investigators’ control points when departing.

After dropping the child off at school, Mr. Mettmann continued to Düsseldorf, dropped off his wife along the way, and entered a multi-story office building surrounded by scaffolding, carrying tools in his hand. Since the building was publicly accessible, one of our commercial investigators followed after a short waiting period to determine whether the target person was performing work there. A notice posted at the entrance informed tenants of urgent renovation work at the property. However, our commercial detective from Wuppertal did not find him inside and was eventually called back by his colleague who had remained outside, as he had located Mr. Mettmann on the exterior scaffolding. Unfortunately, the scaffolding was covered with a tarp, allowing only sporadic sightings of the target person and making it impossible to clearly determine what exactly Mr. Mettmann was doing on the façade. What was clear, however, was that he was working alongside others, receiving instructions, and thus committing sick leave fraud. After working half a day on the scaffolding, the target person visited an accident clinic and finally returned home.

Double Wages Through Fraud

On the following two days as well, our private detectives for Solingen observed Mr. Mettmann performing work at the known automotive workshop (first day), at the construction site in Düsseldorf (both days), and additionally working as a roofer on a roof in Wermelskirchen. In some cases, these were supporting activities such as procuring construction materials, but for the most part, the target person of our detective agency for Solingen actively participated in the work.

Presumably due to his financial difficulties, which arose for reasons unknown, Mr. Mettmann devised and pursued the plan of collecting double wages by being on sick leave from his primary employer while simultaneously working for other companies.

Note

All names and locations have of course been completely altered to protect the client and the target person.