Hurting Your Own Recovery
Illinois workers’ compensation law allows the insurance company to try to stop or lower your benefits if you do something that harms your recovery. This could include either doing something to your health that hurts the progress, or not doing something that could help you. The standard for what will be considered enough to lose your payments is fairly high, though. It is by no means an easy case to prove.
In the case of harming your recovery by your own actions, insurance companies have tried to point to such things as cigarette use, alcohol use, and obesity as reasons to lose your benefits. While there can be facts which could show that the injured worker was actually engaged in some behavior which would harm him or her, generally bad habits alone will not be enough.
Illinois courts have said that basically the worker is who he or she is, and if that means that the insurance company is insuring a smoker, or someone who is overweight, then that’s who they have to insure. Continuing to smoke, even though it could be bad for recovering after surgery, is not necessarily the same as taking some deliberate action to hurt yourself and your healing. Possibly if there were several factors about the workers’ lifestyle that combined to make the treatment and recovery so difficult, there may be some different result.
The situation where the worker may hurt recovery by not agreeing to a procedure that could help, is also a hard case to make. An injured worker does not have to agree to surgery, even if it can be argued that there could potentially be very negative effects from not having the procedure. Again, the insurance company is insuring the worker as he or she is—fears and all. If there is a reasonable fear in undergoing surgery, that belief is to be respected. Benefits should not be lost for acting on these legitimate beliefs, even if there is disagreement about the refusal of treatment.
In either situation, if the worker is acting in good faith and behaving in an honest and reasonable manner, then likely there will not be a good argument for taking away benefits. Even though some of these decisions and actions could ultimately have a negative impact on the total recovery, some leeway is allowed for the differences in human behavior and beliefs.
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.
