People v. Bivens CA2/1

BACKGROUND

In May 2012, an SCIF claims adjuster became suspicious Bivens was submitting fraudulent disability claims after Bivens failed to document attending certain required medical appointments.1 SCIF thereafter approved an investigation by its Special Investigative Unit (SIU) into the legitimacy of Bivens’s claims. The SIU determined it needed to surveil Bivens, but because it has no internal surveilling resources, it hired Paul Chance Investigations (Chance), a third party investigator, to surveil Bivens and obtain evidence she was engaging in activities she claimed she could not perform. Chance deployed a team of four investigators to surveil and videotape Bivens’s activities over several days. SCIF testified that although normally investigations require only one investigator, occasionally circumstances warrant a team of investigators. According to SCIF, Chance recommended it surveil Bivens with a team, rather than an individual investigator, because Bivens lived in a crowded area of Los Angeles, heavy with traffic, and Bivens was a fast driver, conditions which would make Bivens a difficult target to follow. Chance’s investigators eventually caught Bivens on film engaging…