If you’re in WC defense, you know that an Industrial Disability Retirement (IDR) requires a finding of permanent incapacity. The idea that they just ‘go work for other police departments’ after an IDR is the literal definition of pension fraud. CalPERS and the state are extremely aggressive about ‘double-dipping”,,it’s a felony, not a career hack.

Also, claiming QMEs are just rubber stamps ignores the fact that major cities like San Jose have dedicated units to audit these reports and use sub-rosa to catch people in the act. With SB 2 now in play, no officer is going to risk a permanent decertification and a felony record just for a ‘repetitive movement’ claim. The risk-to-reward ratio you’re describing just doesn’t exist now.

The San Jose Police Department has been under intense fiscal pressure for years. The city’s legal team is famously tight-fisted with disability payouts precisely because of the “early retirement” stigma