Hasta La Ideas

We don’t get to point to any of those “can you believe how stupid this law breaker was?!” stories very often because, well, this design field of ours is relatively sane. The worst that usually happens is the occasional copyright infringement case or someone taking advantage with spec work. But finally we’ve got our chance. The LA Weekly reports that designer Ronald Hunt had filed for disability several years ago, claiming he’d been injured on a job and could no longer work. Over those years, he’d racked up thousands upon thousands of dollars, which would have been all well and good and probably would have continued had he not been lured into television by HGTV. Hunt wound up appearing on a program on the home improvement network, hard at work without any sort of debilitating disability in sight. An employee at his insurance company saw the program, turned Hunt in, and now he’s just been sentenced to pay back more than he made and serve time on probation. Lesson learned: if you’re doing something wrong, don’t do it on HGTV. It’s a more popular network than you’d think.

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