A caller to my office was hoping that I would represent his son. He told me that his son was injured while working in Joliet and had sustained a really serious back injury. It was so serious he told me that his son had been unable to work for almost two years since his accident in 2011.
As a work comp lawyer, this is certainly the type of case that I like to take on and I was about to discuss meeting with his son. But then we started discussing the medical care his son had received. It turned out that there was about one month of physical therapy and then he received no further treatment after that.
The boy hadn’t returned to work since then and it was his Dad’s opinion that despite what the doctor said, his child had no ability to work in the last two years. No doctor had ever said that, but that’s what he felt in his heart. So I asked what his kid had been doing the last two years and he told me that he was going to school. The Dad wanted me to file a motion to get two years of unpaid TTD benefits.
When I started my own practice, I told myself that I would always tell people the truth, not what they wanted to hear. That was certainly the case with this caller. Only a doctor can state that you can’t work. You will never get TTD benefits without a note from a physician that authorizes you off of work. That’s the law plain and simple.
In this case, given that the kid can go to school, it certainly appears he could have been working this whole time. But even if he had been sitting on his butt, eating Doritos and watching Jerry Springer all day (is that show still on?), he still wouldn’t be eligible for Illinois work comp benefits because he still has no doctor in his corner.
The moral of the story is that if you aren’t feeling well, go to a doctor. Forget about how it will help your case (although it certainly will), but instead do it for your health. If you don’t get medical treatment then you are risking your future and you certainly can’t make a claim for benefits.
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