Illinois Workers' Compensation: Injured and Then Fired
Following a work injury, while you are still recovering, you are entitled to receive temporary total disability benefits (TTD), to help you financially until you have improved as much as you are able. If you are able to perform some job task, your employer can give you some “light duty” work so you can still follow your doctor’s restrictions. Workers’ compensation benefits continue to support your recovery and financial loss.
But this can sometimes bump against another area of Illinois law. In most instances employees may be fired for good reason, or for no reason at all, unless there is some agreement that says otherwise. If you are working light duty at the job where you were injured, and you are fired from that job, what happens to your benefits?
Your rights as an injured worker should still be protected, allowing you to continue to collect from your old employer’s insurance, even if you have been fired from your job for misconduct, or some other cause which you are responsible for. Employers have tried to make the case that if you are fired for misconduct, they should not have to continue paying TTD. But this argument has been rejected.
The goal of workers’ compensation is to protect injured employees financially, and help them to return as healthy as possible to the work force. To achieve this goal, it makes sense that the law would simply look at whether the employee was entitled to TTD benefits in the first place, and if so, whether the employee is still in the process of recovering from the injury and not yet at the maximum level of improvement.
TTD benefits should not be affected at all, just because you were fired, regardless of you blameworthiness in being fired. If you are continuing to follow your doctor’s orders and your condition is still improving, then the cause for your firing should not be able to be used against you for the purposes of workers’ compensation benefits.
It should be mentioned, though, that your employer, on the other hand, cannot fire you just because you have filed a workers’ compensation claim. Even though Illinois generally allows for terminating employees for any reason if there is no other agreement preventing this, one of the reasons that is not allowed for firing an employee is his or her involvement in a workers’ compensation case.
Either way, employees’ TTD benefits are generally protected when the employer later decides to terminate the employment.
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.
