Injured by inhaling fumes at work.
Many jobs involve exposure to fumes in the workplace that can make you sick, and can even cause an injury or damage to your health. You can have a claim for workers’ compensation benefits for your injuries caused by these fumes in many cases. Even where the exposure is not typically the kind that you would expect would harm you, you may still be able to recover benefits.
Not all fumes affect workers the same way. Sometimes co-workers are not bothered, but you may be more sensitive and experience health problems from the fumes. Or perhaps you have another, unrelated health condition which makes you more susceptible to the fumes causing you harm. Either way, your entitlement to workers’ compensation benefits in most cases should not be affected.
For one Illinois worker who was a smoker and a diabetic, inhaling fumes at work was found to be a cause of his severe pneumonia. Even though the smoking and diabetes had lowered his ability to fight infection and made him more susceptible to getting pneumonia, the result was still the same. The fumes at work made the health condition a work-place illness.
The reason for this is that the Illinois workers’ compensation system deals with the injured worker as a whole: preexisting conditions and all. A worker with a health condition that is made worse by inhaling fumes at work isn’t penalized just because of the prior condition. Likewise for the worker that is particularly sensitive to the fumes. If the workplace is a cause of the health condition, then benefits should be available.
There are some limitations to this rule though. For it to be a workplace injury, the exposure that you’ve had needs to be related enough to your job that someone in the general public wouldn’t experience the same thing. Even if the fumes in fact caused your health problem, if they weren’t different than someone who did not have you job duties would experience, then benefits may not be available.
For example, a worker had a reaction to fumes while involved in a remodeling project. But the same reaction occurred by that same worker outside of the workplace as well. So it was fair to conclude that there was nothing special about the workplace that caused the condition.
Also, recently in Illinois, a worker was denied benefits when she claimed that workplace fumes made her preexisting condition worse. The fumes, though, were determined to be from ordinary products that anyone outside this work environment could also be exposed to. This particular worker had an unusual reaction. But it was not a workplace condition, because the worker wasn’t exposed to something that was unique to her job.
When you’re hurt by fumes in the workplace, you can still get compensation for your health problems if your preexisting condition made it more likely for you to be affected than another worker. But if you reacted in a severe way to an ordinary and common exposure that was not unique to your workplace, you may not be able to recover benefits.
We are workers' compensation attorneys that help people with Illinois work injuries anywhere in IL via our statewide network of attorneys. Contact us and we will answer your questions or find the right lawyer for your situation.
