Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer for carpal tunnel, back injuries, slip and fall, repetitive trauma, RSD. Illinois work injury help from an experienced law firm that fights for its clients.

A reader asks:

 
I injured my back two years ago and had surgery.  Before surgery, the insurance company sent me to one of their doctors, I think it’s called an IME.  I’m still not better and they want me to see the IME doc again.  I no longer live in Chicago as I moved to Indianapolis.  Do I have to come back to see this guy?  Are they allowed to make me see him multiple times?
 
 

An IME is short for independent medical examination.  Under Section 12 of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act, an insurance company can send you to a doctor of their own choosing.
 
This reader does have to attend the exam and if he doesn’t his benefits can get cut off.  There is no set limit for how many times they can make you see the doctor, but do realize that every time you go the insurance company has to spend a bunch of money, so they typically don’t do it for frivolous reasons.  That doesn’t mean the doctor isn’t a hired gun, but it does mean that they won’t make you go every week or every month.
 
Typically a follow up IME happens because there has been a change in your condition or because it’s been quite a while since the doctor last saw you and the insurance company is fishing around to see if the care you are getting is still appropriate.
 
If we felt the insurance company was trying to schedule an IME purely to harass you, we’d file a motion with the Arbitrator to prevent you from having to go.  And while we’ve seen that happen and some insurance companies try to pull lots of dirty tricks, the truth is that burdensome IME’s are almost never a problem.  Usually the client just goes because there is no choice under the law and we deal with the results from there.  Often the IME report seals the deal when it comes to winning the case because their doctor will confirm what your doctor is saying.
 
So don’t fret about an IME.  Just don’t miss it or your benefits could get cut off.

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An independent medical examiner is not the doctor who treats you for your work injury. Rather, they are a doctor who provides a “second opinion” at the request of the insurance company. Usually an independent medical exam (IME) is requested because there is some dispute about your claim. If you are asked to attend an IME, Illinois law says that you must comply. If you don’t show up, your benefits can be suspended.

When you go to the exam, the examining doctor will ask you a lot of questions about your injury, such as how you got hurt and how you’re feeling now. Usually there is a specific reason that the insurance company has requested an IME. They might be looking to find out whether you can return to work, how severe your injury is, how much your injury is worth, or whether your injury was caused by something other than your job. The doctor will produce a report and may testify to give their opinion.

We recommend taking the IME seriously. It’s important to not be defensive or angry during your IME. Answer the questions as honestly as possible. Don’t exaggerate anything. Be calm and respectful. We believe this approach gives you the best chance at a positive outcome.

It may sound like these doctors aren’t independent at all, and in some cases that’s true. Independent medical examiners are hired by insurance companies, and they often come out with findings on the insurance company’s side. However, not all examiners are hired guns. And thankfully the arbitrators usually know which ones to believe.

It’s very common for your treating physician to disagree with the IME results. For example, maybe your doctor thinks you need surgery but the IME doctor says you do not. This is where the experience of a good workers’ compensation attorney comes in. Your attorney will argue your case to the arbitrators and present your doctor’s opinion in the best way possible. The doctor who has seen you all along, rather the doctor who saw you just once, usually carries more weight.
 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

05/11/13

 

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People in all types of jobs get hurt while working, but there are different risks depending on the type of job you have, how much you work, where your job is located and what demands are put upon you.

Nursing home employees face unique working conditions that put them at high risk for on-the-job injuries. People who work in nursing homes are at risk for slipping and falling, especially if floors aren’t kept clean and clear of water and other substances. They are constantly lifting and moving patients, moving equipment, and dealing with people who might resist or become violent. On top of that are the dangers of dealing with contagious disease and illnesses.

It might not be surprising, then, that the rate of work injury among nursing home employees is much higher than at other jobs. Even coal miners and construction workers don’t see the same amount of injuries.

The types of injuries suffered by health care employees, and particularly nursing home employees, include shoulder, neck and back injuries. These can occur when lifting a patient, moving heavy equipment, or from slipping, tripping and falling on something on the floor. A slip and fall also can cause knee and head injuries. Another common type of injury is a repetitive stress injury from using the same part of the body in the same way, time and time again. This can happen with repeated lifting, bending, reaching, etc.

If you are a nursing home employee who has been injured at work, the first and best thing to do is get medical attention. Once you know the extent of your injury, you can take steps to heal physically and seek help from workers’ compensation. In Illinois, workers’ comp covers 100% of your medical bills and can pay a portion of lost wages if you miss work while you are injured and recovering. These benefits make a big difference to those who can’t work due to a job injury.
 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

05/03/13

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Almost every client I talk to wants to know what their case is worth.  Maybe not in the beginning, but it’s natural to think about that and it almost always comes up.  But that’s not the most important thing to think about.

 

The most important thing in your case is by far your health.  You could settle your case for millions, but if you are now brain damaged or paralyzed, what’s the good of that? 

It sounds easy to say, but I’ve seen more and more clients ignoring it.  So here are some rules to live by:

 

1. Listen to your doctor.  I mean really listen.  If they tell you to stretch, do it.  If you aren’t supposed to go bowling anymore then don’t.
2. Get a second opinion if your health isn’t improving.  Some doctors just aren’t good at their job.  I’ve seen too many people stick with a crappy doctor because they assume that the doctor must know what he’s talking about.  If you aren’t getting better, remember that this is your life.  Check around for other options.  It doesn’t mean that you have to switch, but it never hurts to have options.
3. Think about your long term health, especially when it comes to settling your case.  This is a biggie.  When you settle a case, you close out your medical rights for that injury for the rest of your life.  If it’s anticipated that you might need future medical care, the insurance company is supposed to give you a Medicare set-aside which is basically a check for your anticipated future medical needs.  Never settle without discussing this.  Beyond that though, if you are physically as good as you are going to get, but not really better, you don’t have to close out your medical rights.  Instead, you can go to trial and assuming you win, your medical rights will be open for life.  You can still get the money you’d get from a settlement, but you also look out for your health.  So if five years from now you wake up and can’t move your arm (and it’s related to an old work injury) you can get the insurance company to pay for it.  This is huge, especially because health insurance carriers won’t pay for this treatment if they know that it’s from a work injury.
4. Never settle a case right after you stop your medical treatment.  There is no law on this, but a good rule of thumb, in my opinion, is to wait at least three months after you are finished with treatment to consider closing out your medical rights.  Once it’s done it’s done unless you have a new accident.
5. Make sure your treatment is with credible doctors.  The cold truth is that chiropractors for the most part have no credibility at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission.  If you’ve got a back injury that doesn’t resolve in a week, you need to see an orthopedic doctor.  If you’ve got carpal tunnel, you should go to a hand surgeon.  If you have a neck or head injury, you are best served by making an appointment with a neurologist.  The chiro or your family doctor should be nothing more than an initial point of treatment, if anything.

Finally, talk to your lawyer about your health.  If you have concerns, share them.  If you aren’t feeling well, let it be known.  Same with your doctor.  Keeping your mouth shut causes people to assume that you are fine and nothing is wrong.  Speak up and look out for your own life.  You have to be your own biggest fan.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/27/13

 

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A common call to my office goes something like this:
 

I injured my back at work six months ago.  I had an MRI and it shows that I have a herniated disc.  My doctor agrees that my problem is work related, but the insurance company sent me to some IME doctor who says that I’m fine and that any problems I have must be from a car accident from when I was 17 years old.  I’m 52 now.  How can they deny me?  I’ve been very patient with them, but they won’t approve my surgery and I am running out of money.
 

I don’t want to over-simplify how the Illinois workers’ compensation system works, but this scenario is fairly easy to work out.
 
Step 1 – Hire a reputable work comp lawyer who has a history of going to trial on cases.
 
Step 2 – They gather all of your medical records and schedule a deposition of your doctor and the IME doctor.
 
Step 3 – You meet them at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission for a trial and put your fate in the hands of an Arbitrator.
 
It does take a few months for all of this, longer if you don’t already have a case filed, but this isn’t rocket science.  A case like the one in my example is really straight forward and quite honestly, there is no way a good lawyer should lose that case.  You just need to get the wheels in motion to get a decision from an Arbitrator.
 
Unfortunately, many injured workers either delay getting a lawyer (that’s your fault) or hire one that’s very lazy and doesn’t do what it takes to get to a trial (which is of course their fault).  Getting a case filed before you “need” an attorney is a security blanket in case the insurance company denies your case or cuts you off.  And while it’s not ideal to switch attorneys, if you have a lazy one that won’t go to bat for you –which is really all they have to do – then you fire them and get a good one in your corner.
 
In general though, if you are getting screwed over you can either accept it or do something about it.  I’m sure some lawyers try to talk all lawyerly and impress their clients, but it’s really not more complicated than what I said.  All I know is that if someone was kicking me in the gut, I’d do something.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/23/13

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The short answer is no, you should not.
 
The longer answer is, I know many people swear by their chiro’s and have made good recoveries thanks to them.  But the honest truth is that at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission and with insurance companies and lawyers too, chiropractors have no credibility.  This is especially true when you compare them to orthopedic doctors or neurosurgeons.
 
The reason I say this is because there are many chiropractors who over-treat and over-bill their patients and insurance companies.  Others get tied in with scummy lawyers and refer each other clients back and forth, treating them as much as possible to try and add value to the case.  I get solicited by these outfits all of the time (I always decline) So while there are plenty of honest chiro’s out there, they all suffer from the actions of the bad ones.
 
Beyond that, much of chiropractic care is designed to solve soft tissue problems and/or provide temporary relief as compared to medical doctors that treat the problems with advanced medicine and sometimes surgery in order to end the problem for good.
 
So if a case ever requires an opinion from a medical professional that an injury is work related or that a worker can’t do their job, a neurosurgeon or orthopedic doctor will always have the most credibility.  If you try to rely on your chiro and the insurance company has a MD in their corner, they will win and you will lose, even if you are in the right.  In fact, I’ve been handling cases since 1997 and can’t recall one time when an Arbitrator on a work comp case found in favor of the opinion of a chiro over a regular doctor.
 
I know some of you love your chiropractors and I’ve had clients tell me that their chiro is the best and is the only one that makes them feel better.  I respect that, but I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear, I’m here to tell you the truth.  And the truth is that anything beyond limited treatment will be disputed whether it’s valid or not and whoever the chiro is will not have a medical opinion that carries any way in proving the nature of your disability.
 
I never tell my clients which doctor they have to treat with because to me that’s scummy and could set up the injured worker to look bad on a witness stand.  But I will tell them if their doctor is going to hurt their case.  My general rule is that after two weeks with a chiropractor you are not all better, you need to ask for a referral to a specialist and let them take it from there.

 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

04/17/13

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A Joliet attorney who alleges that they handle workers’ compensation cases really dodged a bullet according to their client that called me in a panic.
 
The caller had been injured in Will County and hired a local attorney that said he handled job injuries along with DUI’s, divorces and a bunch of other stuff.  The lawyer told my caller that he wanted to meet him at court to discuss a settlement proposal.  So the client went to the Will County courthouse and met his lawyer there and waited for the defense attorney to show. And they waited and they waited and the defense lawyer never appeared.
 
Finally the lawyer got a call on his cell phone from this other attorney, asking where he was.  The lawyer for the caller was pissed and said, “What do you mean where am I?  Where are you?  I’m at the Joliet courthouse waiting for you with my client.”
 
And that is when the defense attorney informed this general practice lawyer who was trying to dabble in workers’ compensation claims that the Will County location for workers’ compensation hearings had been moved to New Lenox.
 
The hearings used to be at the Joliet courthouse, but were transferred to New Lenox a couple of years ago.  Of course this is something every regularly practicing Illinois work comp lawyer knows, just as we all know that the hearing location in Bloomington just moved as well.  This stuff happens, not every day, but every year for sure.
 
So I say the lawyer dodged a bullet because it was only an attorney waiting for him, not an Arbitrator that could have dismissed the case.  So the lawyer ended up with egg on his face and a pissed off client.  It could have been a lot worse for both the lawyer and the client.
 
The moral of the story is that if your attorney isn’t handling workers’ compensation cases every single day then you are playing with fire, especially if you have a serious injury.  The laws change a lot and even the hearing locations change.  If your attorney isn’t on top of things, you could be the one that gets screwed.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/13/13

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I keep track of good questions that come from clients or readers who post comments to our blog.  Here are a few that are worth sharing:

 
I slipped on ice taking out the garbage on my job.  I’m a fireman in the northwest burbs.  Can I sue the city for my injuries since they didn’t get rid of the snow and ice?
 
The answer is no you can’t because in exchange for getting “no fault” workers’ compensation benefits, workers lose their right to sue their employer for general negligence like this.
 
A lawyer told me that I don’t have a case because I didn’t report my accident to my boss within 45 days of it happening.  But he knew I hurt my back because he saw me walking with a cane after this happened and knew that I left work early to go to my doctor.  Isn’t that enough?
 
The answer is that it depends, but there is a case that was decided that is pretty similar and went in the worker’s favor.  So we’d probably take this case on, but it’s always best to report an injury because you don’t want to create and possible defense for the insurance company or you can lose your rights.
 
When my case settles does my lawyer get one check and me the other or do they just send one check?
 
There is no rule on how this has to happen, but typically the insurance company sends one check payable to the lawyer and injured worker.  Usually the worker will sign a limited power of attorney form that allows the attorney to endorse their name to the check and deposit it in their client trust account.  After that the attorney writes a new check to their client which is the settlement less the 20% fee and the expenses on the case that the attorney advanced.
 
My mom was killed on the job.  The insurance company says they only have to pay for her medical bills and the funeral.  That sounds crazy.  Is it true?
 
I talked to this person and learned that he’s 26 and the only child of his mother who is divorced.  He was not financially dependent on his mom in any way.  So unfortunately the insurance company was telling the truth on this one.  The law only requires them to pay medical bills and funeral expenses up to $8,000.  That’s it.  It’s sad, but true.
 
I see that you have a state wide network of lawyers.  That sounds cool, but tell me who is the best workers comp lawyer in Illinois because I only want the best working on my case.
 
It’s true.  We have a network of lawyers throughout Illinois who only handle work injury claims.  But I’d be full of it if I claimed that one of them (myself included) is the best.  You shouldn’t be looking for the best lawyer (which of course is just an opinion), but instead should figure out who is best for your case.  That depends on a lot of things such as the background of your case, the type of injury you have, is a trial likely, what are your goals, who is the Arbitrator, what city were you hurt in, do you have prior accidents, who is your doctor, etc.  Anyone who calls themselves the best is just marketing themselves.  There is no rating system beyond our network that is invitation only and kicks lawyers out who don’t deliver.
 
If you have questions fill out our contact form or call us at (312) 346-5578.  We’ll talk to anyone for free at any time about their case and do so in confidence.

 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

04/11/13

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So it was 12 years ago that I opened up my own firm.  Shortly thereafter I decided to improve the way finding a workers’ compensation lawyer works.  I created a statewide network of like minded attorneys that care about their clients and do a good job.  When people contact us, we always recommend the lawyer within our network that is the best fit for their case.
 
I did a little math work and estimate that in the last 12 years, I’ve talked, met with or e-mailed more than 10,000 injured workers.  We haven’t helped all of them, but we’ve been direct and honest with every person that has called me.  It’s a pleasure and honor that people trust us to consult on what is often the most important issue in their lives.
 
We recently were involved in a case that settled for $400,000 after a man came to us for help having been rejected by two law firms.  I take pride in that result, but also am thrilled with the people who get smaller results that are reflective of the best possible outcome for their case.
 
So I don’t have any advice or anecdotes today.  I just want to say thank you for trusting in us and let you know that whether you come to us for representation or are one of the many people that just read our blog for some peace of mind, we look forward to twelve more years of helping people out.  And we always remain at your disposal if you want to talk. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/03/13

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There is a workers’ compensation attorney in Chicago that has been around for about 40 years. He’s kind of an ass and not really my kind of guy, but you can’t deny that he helped build one of the biggest and most successful work comp firms in town. 15 years ago if you were hurt on the job and hired him or one of his partners, I don’t think anyone would say that you made a bad choice.

Problem is that it’s not 15 years ago anymore. Of the four “name” partners at this firm, one is deceased, one has been retired for a while now and this third one that I mentioned earlier has also retired. The 4th is still around, but in his mid 60’s and probably headed to retirement soon. They do have some younger associates.

The guy that I was talking about in the first part of this post has settled most of his cases and for the ones he didn’t settle, I’m told that a lot of them are now being handled by an attorney that is not part of their firm. I have no idea why they would do that.

Twenty years ago, you might have said that Huey Lewis is the best musician in the world (you’d be insane, but at least he had some hits), but today he’s nowhere to be found. The truth is that many law firms for work comp in Chicago and elsewhere have made a reputation for themselves and live off of that rep instead of the work they are currently doing.

I have nothing against this guy for retiring. In fact, when I see an attorney in their 60’s that is still handling cases, I wonder what’s wrong with them. But he surely knew that he was heading toward a retirement and he still took on new clients. To me that is wrong, especially when his firm isn’t taking over those cases or adding quality lawyers to take over the firm.

Your case is about you and what’s best for you. When you hire a lawyer, you don’t want someone who is too young, but you also don’t want someone who is too old. The lawyer has a right to retire, but don’t they have a moral obligation to tell you that before you hire them and to continue to work hard for the people they already represent? I think they do.

Since your case is about what is best for you, don’t be afraid to ask a lawyer how long they plan on practicing for before you hire them. Don’t be afraid to ask who will take over the case if they aren’t available or something happens to them. Those are completely reasonable questions.

We have created a state wide network of experienced, hard working, caring workers comp lawyers. No one pays us to be a part of that network and if someone isn’t delivering, we’ll kick them out. Just because someone is the right lawyer for you five years ago doesn’t mean that they are the right lawyer for you today. And you know what, I think I’m great at this now, but in 20 years (or maybe less) there will certainly be someone who is better. And that’s just the way it goes.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/28/13

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Not every injured worker will experience a trial. However, if your claim is denied or there is a dispute about benefits, you may find yourself at a trial or hearing.

Workers’ compensation trials are different from typical civil trials. A work injury trial is called arbitration. The cases are heard by arbitrators rather than judges, but their role is much the same. They hear the case and make a final decision. Many of the arbitrators are lawyers, although it is not a requirement.

You won’t be going to the courthouse. Your dispute will be heard at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission in downtown Chicago or at one of the other locations throughout the state. You will go with your attorney. The insurance company will have an attorney there, as well. Both sides will present their arguments and call witnesses if necessary. The injured worker usually testifies. Your doctor will testify as well, but usually not in person. His or her testimony will likely be taken ahead of time in a deposition and then submitted at the arbitration.

The arbitrator does not make a decision right away. They review all of the testimony that was heard, as well as all of the medical records in the case. You can expect an answer in a couple of months. You do have the right to appeal the decision, but most cases are not overturned.

Many work injury cases settle without going to arbitration. However, settling isn’t the best decision in every case. Your attorney will discuss the pros and cons with you. For example, if you settle, you know that you’ll get at least some benefits. If you lose at trial, you could end up with none. However, if you settle, you will likely give up any future medical benefits. If your injury worsens later on, you can’t go back for more coverage. If you win at trial, future medical benefits usually remain available.

Your attorney should be very familiar with arbitrations at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. It’s not the same as handling other types of trials. An attorney who knows the procedures, the arbitrators and the other attorneys has a distinct advantage. When hiring a work injury attorney, make sure they are willing to go to trial on your claim if necessary.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/17/13

 

 

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In a typical civil lawsuit, the key to winning is proving that the other side was at fault. In a work injury case, however, your success depends on whether you can prove that your injury was in fact a work injury. This means that your injury was related to your job duties and happened in the course of your employment.

So how do you prove that? The key is having a doctor who agrees that your injury was caused by your job. If you don’t, and your claim is denied, you are at a serious disadvantage. Not only are your medical records considered by the arbitrator at a hearing or trial, but your doctor’s testimony will be submitted, as well. If these don’t back up your claim, then you’re going to have a hard timing winning.

See your doctor right away and be very clear about how you got hurt. If it’s a repetitive stress injury, be clear about your job duties so that a connection can be made between your injury and your work. Without that connection, the insurance company will claim that your injury was caused by something else.

There is a statute of limitations, which is a fairly strict deadline, for filing a claim. For Illinois workers’ compensation claims the limit is three years from the date of your injury. If you have already received some benefits, then you have two years from the date of the last benefit payment to take action on your case. If you miss these deadlines, it’s tough to get another chance.

 We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/15/13

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A caller to my office said that an alleged Rockford workers’ compensation lawyer asked her to give him $500 before he’d agree to take on her case. Apparently he said it was for “expenses and court costs.” She wanted to know if this was legitimate.

The answer is big, fat NO!!!!

Under Illinois law, attorney’s fees in Illinois workers comp cases are limited to 20% of what you recover. Your lawyer does get reimbursed for their expenses, but that comes at the end of the case.

I know of no lawyer, even the terrible ones, that ask for the client to pay for expenses up front. First off, the expenses are almost always minimal, usually under $200. If the lawyer doesn’t have that much laying around the office in his account, then they probably have had no success whatsoever to speak of.

There are no court filing fees either, so it’s not like there is some big, up front expense.

Don’t ever give a work comp lawyer any money out of your own pocket. It’s a shocking sign of someone that has a terrible law practice.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/07/13

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A reader asks:

I injured my shoulder in September of 2011. I had a rotator cuff surgery and got released after extensive therapy back to work in October of 2012. I’m working my old job (I’m a laborer in the Chicago suburbs). All my bills were paid by work comp as was all of my time off. My question is, do they have to give me a settlement?

The answer is that they don’t “have” to give a settlement. Unlike payment of medical bills and TTD benefits for time off work, the law doesn’t require a settlement offer to be made.

Insurance companies sometimes do this in order to close out your medical rights, but even when they do, it’s become woefully low under the new work comp laws which factor AMA settlement guidelines in to what the case is worth. We recently received a call from a woman who was offered $5,000 after her treatment was done and we valued the case at around $40,000.

So when they do make an offer, it’s often a joke. But for cases like this reader, they typically aren’t making offers because shoulder injuries have been re-classified to what is called “man as a whole” claims. What this means is that if you re-hurt your shoulder, the insurance company can no longer get credit for what they previously paid you like they could under the old law. So whereas before if you had a repeat injury on a settled case, the insurance company wouldn’t have to offer you much of a settlement, now they’d essentially have to give you full value for your injury both times.

I’m probably not articulating this very well, but trust me when I tell you that they are no longer motivated to offer you a reasonable amount if anything at all.

The good news is that you can still get a settlement if you just formally file your case. Once we file, it makes sure that you don’t blow the time limits to pursue a case and gives us authority to negotiate a settlement. If they don’t offer what is fair then we can simply take your case to arbitration and get a court order for what your injury is worth.

Almost every injury is worth something. That doesn’t mean they’ll give it to you voluntarily, but it’s not up to them either.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/05/13

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So many attorneys out there are afraid or too lazy to go to trial. It’s not super hard work, but it does take time to get a case ready. Even after you go to trial, there is no guarantee as to how long an Arbitrator will take to issue a decision on a claim.

In most cases, our good Arbitrators get decisions back to the attorneys between 30 and 60 days after a trial. There is no law that requires this, but most of them have pride and want to get their work done. Their jobs aren’t guaranteed and if the word gets out that they are lazy, they won’t get re-appointed.

The problem is that not all of the Arbitrators have a strong background in workers’ compensation, so some of them don’t know what they are doing. This is mostly rare as the majority of them are great.

That said, a defense attorney just told me that she was involved in a trial in April of 2012 and ten months later she is still waiting to get a decision. So what ends up happening is that the petitioner gets starved out because they have to wait so long and the insurance company faces so much liability due to the delay that if they lose, they are motivated to appeal.

This is rare and is actually the longest delay I’ve ever heard of. So don’t let your attorney tell you that going to trial will take forever. But in very rare occasions it will.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/01/13

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The answer to that question is that it’s a bad thing many times:

- It’s bad if your case is really worth $250,000. I’m shocked at how often I see of an attorney convincing a client to settle for way less than what the case could be worth. $100,000 is a lot of money, but it’s not that much when you can’t work anymore.

- It’s bad when you need a lot more medical treatment and the settlement will close out your medical rights. If you need to have a back surgery and no longer have insurance to pay for it because you settled, that 100k is going to disappear pretty quickly.

- It’s bad when to get that amount you have to settle all of your open cases, but it’s not close to full value for all of your open cases. A caller to my office had a 100k offer for a knee injury. He had a separate case where he needs shoulder surgery, but the insurance company (and his lawyer) want him to settle both claims. Terrible idea.
 

- It’s bad if that’s the absolute worst you can do at trial. When we represent clients, we let them know what a possible range at trial could be. If the worst case is $100,000 and the best case is $175,000, settling for 100 is only good for the insurance company and the lawyer who is too lazy to actually spend the day in court.
 

- It’s bad when you used to make $60,000 a year, can’t go back to your old job and haven’t found new work. Until vocational rehabilitation has been completed and you’ve found work that is at or near your old wages, settling could cost you a ton.

In some cases, getting a $20,000 settlement is huge. In other cases, 100k is really low. Don’t focus on the dollar numbers or what someone else you know got. Try to figure out what your best and worst case scenario is and use that as your guide for determining what a fair amount is. If your attorney tells you to take a certain amount, make sure that they explain why.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/28/13

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Lawyers who handle Illinois workers’ compensation cases on a daily basis know who the good work comp attorneys from the bad. We know who you’d hire if you needed a lawyer and who you wouldn’t send your worst enemy to. Unfortunately, there is no such warning available for the general public when you hire an attorney unless you know who to ask for help.

I thought of this recently when I got a call from a union worker who had hired a notoriously lazy firm a few years ago. Apparently he had used them once before, his brother used them three times and they refereed over 10 union members to them. In other words, this guy is a dream client and should be taken care of. Everyone in their office should know that if he calls, he should get great treatment, even if the rest of their clients get crappy treatment.

In this case, the case was apparently settled back in November, but as we sit here today, the worker still hasn’t been paid even though he was promised he’d have the settlement money by Christmas. He’s been given no reason for the delay and now the lawyer and his secretary refuse to answer his phone calls.

Unfortunately this case is too far along for my firm to be of any service, but I did advise him to do two things: 1. Show up at the office at 8:30 a.m. and wait there until he gets an answer. There is no way a delay like this should have occurred. 2. Never send them business again. Law firms should be in the customer service industry. If they treat their valuable clients like this, imagine how terrible they treat the others. The best way to send a message to them is to not send them any more cases. And if you’re real spiteful, the next time you do have a friend to refer or a new case of your own, call them up and let them know you won’t be hiring them and tell them why.

Lawyers can’t guarantee results. We can’t control the facts of a case or how much of a pain in the butt the insurance company will be. But we can control our effort and commitment to you. I’ll never understand why some attorneys just ignore this part of the business. Saying “treat people how you want to be treated” is so easy to say, but for whatever reason so hard to follow in practice. I’m not claiming that I’m perfect at it all of the time, but I could never sleep at night if I had clients whose calls I wasn’t returning because I didn’t deliver on my promises. But of course many lawyers don’t have a problem with that. And until their clients stop sending them business, they’ll probably continue to give the same crappy service that they’ve gotten away with.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/20/13

 

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 For those of you new to our blog, we are unusual in that we’ve created a state wide network of like minded lawyers that fight for their clients.  Instead of trying to personally handle every case ourselves, we connect you with the attorney that we think is best for your unique case facts.  Some things we consider are your injury, where you live, the city you were hurt in, the status of your case and your personal desires such as speaking a foreign language.  This doesn’t guarantee a result, but we’ve had great success in the last 12 years by using this method.  We don’t make as much money as we would if we took every case that came through the door, but our clients get better results so we are thrilled.

 

The right lawyer can truly make the difference in a case.  There are some law firms that will sign up every case that comes through their door, no matter how bad the case is.  If an attorney gets a reputation for representing liars or injury fakers, it will hurt their good cases too.  If the attorney is disrespectful to the Arbitrators or known as lazy, that will harm their cases.  We know one Chicago workers’ compensation attorney in particular who has made so many enemies that defense attorneys seem to win cases against him that they would ordinarily lose.  Of course nobody we recommend is like that.

 

On the flip side, if your attorney is well regarded, that will benefit you.  Every spring, the Arbitrators at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission go through training.  Part of this training is run by current lawyers.  One of the lawyers we work with on cases was picked to lead part of the training.

 

This is a great and deserved honor for him and it certainly reinforces my belief that he is very knowledgeable.  But what makes me more confident in his ability and customer service is the glowing feedback I get from people like you who have worked with him in the past.  

 

That said, when he goes to court and appears before an Arbitrator that he has helped train and educate, that will lead to a certain level of respect.  Again, that doesn’t guarantee he’ll win every case, but it does make him look great.  If the insurance company has an unknown lawyer then the advantage is even bigger.

 

It’s hard to know the reputation of an attorney if you aren’t in the field.  If you see warning signs like rude behavior, not following through on what they said they will do, sloppiness, passing your case off to young associates, etc., you might want to look elsewhere for help.

 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/16/13

 

 

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A reader asks:

I fell off a ladder while working in Chicago a year ago and hurt my back. An MRI shows I have a herniated disc at L4-5. I’ve received epidural steroid shots, physical therapy and pain meds. Nothing is working so my doctor wants to do a surgery. The insurance company sent me for an IME. That guy says I’m fine and don’t need any more treatment. What should I do?

This type of scenario happens all of the time. Some IME doctors are hired guns and will say whatever the insurance company wants them to. Even if ridiculous.

Because this happens, it’s extremely important that before you hire an Illinois workers’ compensation law firm that you check how much trial experience they have and who actually would take your case to trial if push comes to shove. The only way to solve this worker’s problem is with a trial motion. Many firms will sign up your work comp case, but if actual work needs to be done they won’t tell actually do what is needed or they will have a very inexperienced associate handle the case. So you’ll probably be facing a defense attorney with 20 years of experience and be represented by a kid in their 20’s with a couple cases under their belt. How do you feel about those chances?

So we have created a state wide network of experienced attorneys, all of whom have a real track record of taking cases to trial. That doesn’t mean we win every case, but we certainly win most of our cases and get great results because we care about our clients and fight for them. We don’t promise anything other than we’ll give it all we got and that we care, but usually that is enough to win a case.

If your treating doctor has a good reputation, usually their opinion will rule the day at trial. But before we go to trial we often have to take depositions of both doctors, gather medical records and of course prep our client and any witnesses that we have. It’s not back breaking labor, but it does take time and the sad truth is that some lawyers don’t want to do it because they can make good money on the 80% of cases where a trial isn’t needed. The client gets screwed, but somehow they sleep at night.

So when you hire a lawyer, make sure that you will be working with a person that you are comfortable with if the worst case scenario happens on your case. If you don’t you’ll have to consider changing attorneys mid-case and while that is possible, it can delay things a bit.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/12/13

 

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A reader asks:

 I have to go to an IME. Am I allowed under Illinois law to record the exam with audio and video?

 The answer to the question is that you are not allowed to do this without the permission of the doctor. And there is no doctor in the world that we know of who would agree to this.

Remember, this doctor isn’t seeing you for your benefit. He’s seeing you for the benefit of the insurance company. He doesn’t owe you any courtesy and isn’t looking out for your best interests. If you try to bring in a video recorder, it will put him/her on the defensive and probably cause them to make assumptions about your character that you don’t want to be made. If they put that in a report, an Arbitrator could see it and it could hurt your case.

I’ve seen this happen three times and all three times the doctor ripped apart the injured worker. If you insist on bringing in recording equipment and the doctor refuses to examine you, it could result in you losing your benefits for not cooperating with an IME.

As a lawyer, I try to be solution focused. The concern in going to an IME is that the exam will last 2 minutes, the doctor won’t really examine you and they’ll write a report that refutes everything your treating doctor says. When they testify they won’t admit that they are a hired gun, so showing what they did or didn’t do can help your case. So how can you do this in a non-threatening manner?

Ask if your spouse or friend can sit in with you. Don’t say why and if they ask just state that it would make you feel more comfortable. That person can potentially be a witness to refute the report the doctor will prepare.

If they won’t let you bring someone in the room with you, slyly hit the stopwatch on your phone or otherwise look at your watch as soon as they walk in and again when they walk out.
When you leave the exam, go to your car and in a journal write down all the questions they asked you, what exams they did, etc.

In the end though, don’t freak out about the exam. If your doctor is in your corner and is credible then in most cases you will win any dispute even if the IME doctor finds against you. It may result in a delay of your benefits, but if you have the right attorney in your corner, that problem can be overcome. Some IME doctors are hired guns who make six figures a year off of these exams and don’t want to lose that income stream. But others will give an honest opinion. You should ask your lawyer about the doctor you have to see and their reputation.

Bottom line though is that you have to attend this exam so freaking out won’t help you. Just be as prepared as possible because no matter the situation that always gives you the best chance for a good result.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/10/13

 

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It’s a felony for an employer not to carry Illinois workers’ compensation insurance. Some small companies try to get away with it and when they get caught, they usually get hammered by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission.

It’s not uncommon for me to get a phone call for someone looking for a workers’ compensation lawyer who believes that their employer does not have insurance. They think this because that’s what their employer tells them and they assume they are being told the truth.

If you get paid by a check that has your employer’s tax ID number on it, a simple search by our office can determine if they do in fact have coverage. Even without that information, we can usually find coverage by looking up their name.

The other day we received a call from a woman whose husband was severely injured on the job. His boss said he didn’t carry work comp insurance because he “didn’t believe in it.” That’s a crock and of course puts his employees at risk and him at risk of going to jail if it’s true. Turns out that he’s all talk because we looked up his tax ID number and there was in fact coverage.

The caller to our office had been turned down by three other firms. This was just a sign that those firms are either too lazy or too incompetent to properly handle a case.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/04/13

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A reader asks:

I fell on a tarp that was covering carpet at my office. It was there for construction and as I fell I grabbed the railing and felt a terrible pain in my shoulder. My doctor thinks that I tore my rotator cuff and wants me to get a MRI. The insurance adjuster told me that she will not authorize any treatment until I give a recorded statement about what happened. Should I do this?

The answer is always NO. Even in a case like this where the injured worker is clearly hurt on the job, recorded statements exist for only one reason. It gives an insurance adjuster a chance to twist your words against you. Insurance companies make money by not paying out claims that they should pay out. So in a case like this, if the adjuster can get the worker to state that they really aren’t 100% sure why they fell, that would be enough to deny the claim and potentially save the insurance company tens of thousands in medical bills they don’t have to pay.

 

In a case like this, we call the insurance adjusters and tell them that our client will not be giving a recorded statement. We will answer any questions the adjuster has. Anything we say can not be used as evidence. Anything you say, even if it gets twisted, can be used against you in an arbitration hearing or to deny your benefits.

 

No one would assume that an insurance company has bad intentions by asking what happened in the accident (or maybe they would assume that), but there is no reason they take these statements other than to try to come up with a reason to deny you.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/02/13

 

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A reader asks:

I fell on a tarp that was covering carpet at my office. It was there for construction and as I fell I grabbed the railing and felt a terrible pain in my shoulder. My doctor thinks that I tore my rotator cuff and wants me to get a MRI. The insurance adjuster told me that she will not authorize any treatment until I give a recorded statement about what happened. Should I do this?

The answer is always NO. Even in a case like this where the injured worker is clearly hurt on the job, recorded statements exist for only one reason. It gives an insurance adjuster a chance to twist your words against you. Insurance companies make money by not paying out claims that they should pay out. So in a case like this, if the adjuster can get the worker to state that they really aren’t 100% sure why they fell, that would be enough to deny the claim and potentially save the insurance company tens of thousands in medical bills they don’t have to pay.

In a case like this, we call the insurance adjusters and tell them that our client will not be giving a recorded statement. We will answer any questions the adjuster has. Anything we say can not be used as evidence. Anything you say, even if it gets twisted, can be used against you in an arbitration hearing or to deny your benefits.

No one would assume that an insurance company has bad intentions by asking what happened in the accident (or maybe they would assume that), but there is no reason they take these statements other than to try to come up with a reason to deny you.

So don’t talk. It can’t help you, even if you are honest. And remember, your benefits can’t legally be denied for not talking and if they are denied there are things we can do to turn the case around while still protecting your rights.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/25/13

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An Independent Medical Exam, or IME, is an exam performed by a doctor who is not your regular doctor. An injured worker can request an IME, but more often the employer or insurance company requests it when there is a dispute about your condition or the amount of benefits you are receiving, or in preparation for trial or settlement.

In Illinois, injured workers are allowed to choose their treating physician. However, the insurance company can use these independent exams to get a second opinion, particularly one that they hope will support their position. The IME doctor will not be treating you. They are just providing an expert opinion. The insurance company pays for the IME, including travel and expenses, and it should be scheduled at a time and place that is reasonable for you.

Regardless of who requests the IME, the independent doctor will produce a report with his or her findings, and you are entitled to a copy of that report. It might include their opinion on how you were injured and whether it is work related, how serious your injury is, whether it is permanent and whether you can return to work. The report is very important to your case. If you don’t get a copy from the insurance company, request one. If they delay or refuse, your attorney can subpoena a copy. For Illinois workers’ compensation attorneys, using a subpoena is routine. It only costs us about $20 to do this for clients.

If the insurance company is holding back on the IME report, chances are it’s because it’s in your favor. If you discover that’s true it will greatly help your case. In other words, it’s important to get a copy. The doctor doesn’t work for you so they don’t have to give you one, but they can’t ignore a subpoena from a lawyer.

Under Illinois law, if you file a claim for workers’ compensation, then you are required to attend an IME if one is requested. If you refuse, you could lose your benefits. However, don’t go into an IME unprepared. You should be given a reasonable amount of notice, and you should talk to your attorney about what to expect at your IME. As for the report, you can and should get a copy, so don’t give up. It’s a simple task for an experienced work injury attorney, and the bottom line is that a favorable IME report can put your case in a great position.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/23/13

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There are literally hundreds of reasons that you can win or lose your claim for benefits. Here are some reasons you’ll win: 1. Witnesses saw the accident. 2. Your doctor is respected and in your corner. 3. The accident was reported in a timely manner. Here are some big reasons why you’ll lose: 1. Surveillance video of you shows that you were lying to the doctor about your injuries. 2. The IME doctor is more believable than your doctor. 3. Your injury isn’t covered under Illinois law.

But above all the possible reasons for winning or losing, the biggest factor can be summed up in one word: credibility. How reliable are you? Do you seem like someone that would b.s. people, embellish an injury or make stuff up? Or do you come off as trustworthy and honest.

I thought of this recently when I was called by a carpenter who had badly messed up his leg when he fell off a ladder at work. He’s had a lot of bumps and bruises over the years, but despite the somewhat risky nature of his job, he had never filed a workers’ compensation claim. He’s a workaholic and the last thing he wants is to be injured.

Despite his history of being a great worker, the employer and insurance company are screwing with him. He was smart and got an attorney to be in his corner and look out for his best interests.

I don’t have all the facts on this case, but even without them I’ll bet that he will win because he’s clearly not someone looking for a quick buck. If we took his case to trial the first thing I would do is go over his long career and excellent safety history. Showing his work ethic really displays to an Arbitrator how credible he is. If the case ends up being a close call, that extra credibility will most likely swing things in his favor.

Compare him to the worker that called me a day before this guy. He had filed at least 10 prior cases despite being a fairly young guy. The insurance company was fighting case #11. He looks like someone who makes getting hurt on the job part of the job. Maybe he’s legit, maybe not, but he certainly doesn’t look like it.

If you are an Arbitrator and have to compare these two, one will stand out as slimy and the other will stand out as being a good guy. That doesn’t mean that the guy who has brought a ton of cases can’t ever get legitimately hurt again, but it does mean that he could be creating some trouble for himself.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/21/13

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There are a lot of doctors and workers comp attorneys in Illinois that are desperate for business. They are so desperate (or unethical) that they strike deals with each other. “You send me your clients, I’ll send you my patients” and vice versa.

We get approached all of the time from physicians who want to “help” my clients and in return tell me that I can “help” their patients who have been injured on the job. I always tell them that they are welcome to recommend their patients to me if they believe that I will do the best job for them, but I will never direct my clients to them or anyone else as it’s not the right thing to do and can blow up a case. That doesn’t mean we won’t recommend a physician if we are asked or offer an opinion on a doctor, but I will never, ever tell some injured worker that they must treat with a doctor that I know.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of docs and law firms that only care about their pocket book. That doesn’t mean that they are bad at their jobs, but does indicate that they won’t put you first over the relationship with their referral source. Often these “professionals” tell their clients that they have to work with the person they are recommending. It’s simply not a choice.

I saw this recently when a woman came to me with a severe neck injury. She had some attorney who I never had heard of. I looked him up and his office was very far from the courthouse (bad sign) and boasted of the millions that he had recovered for his clients (although he didn’t list any actual case results to back that up). Anyway, she got to him because her doctor recommended him. She wants to sue that doctor for a bad malpractice screw up and her work comp attorney told her that he wouldn’t allow it and that if she did that he would drop her as a client.

I can’t think of a better example of the slippery slope these lawyer/doctor relationships create than this one. The injured worker is reaching out to her attorney for help and she is basically told to buzz off. He doesn’t care about her, he cares about the next 20 clients this doc can send.

Her problem is solvable by switching lawyers, but it’s really not a problem that she ever should have had at all. There is certainly no way to guarantee that your attorney will look out for you, but when your doctor is telling you that you have to work with a certain lawyer, it’s a sign that they care about each other way more than they will ever care about you.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/19/13

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A Functional Capacity Evaluation, or FCE, is a test that is performed at the end of treatment to determine what, if any, restrictions a worker has in terms of the ability to perform his or her job. These tests usually require a prescription from a doctor, although the initial recommendation may come from your attorney, the insurance company or your employer.

Once your doctor declares that you are as good as you are going to get, there may still be questions about your ability to do your job as fully as you once did. Many times, workers fully recover from their work injuries and this isn’t a question. Or perhaps the job is not physically demanding and the issue doesn’t really come up. In other cases, however, an FCE is an important step in finalizing your claim.

The evaluator will assess what your job duties are and then test your ability to perform them. For example, if you have to lift heavy boxes, the evaluator will test your ability to lift and look at any limitations you might have. This information is not only useful for you and your employer but it can help in settling your case, as well. If you have a permanent injury or restriction, it can affect the value of your case. Even if it’s clear to you that you cannot fully perform your job any longer, the insurance company is not going to take your word for it. An FCE can back up your claims.

An FCE is a pivotal step in your workers’ compensation claim. Make sure you have an experienced attorney guiding you through the process.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/11/13

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Back injuries are among the most common type of work injury and perhaps some of the most serious. Handling your claim carefully from the beginning can mean the difference between a successful outcome and one that fails to make up for your financial loss and physical suffering.

First of all, get the right kind of treatment. If it’s anything more than a strain, skip the chiropractor and go to an orthopedic doctor. The worst that will happen is they will tell you it’s just a strain. But if it’s something more serious, getting the right kind of help early on helps your back, as well as your claim. We aren’t trying to give you medical advice but rather share our legal perspective. In our experience, arbitrators and judges give more weight to the opinion of a doctor.

In addition, make sure to explain to your doctor exactly how you hurt your back. If it wasn’t a one-time incident, but rather something that developed over time, make sure you still explain how your job may affect your condition. If you don’t inform your doctor about your work, then you can’t expect them to connect the injury to your job. And if they don’t say it’s a work injury then you’ll have trouble getting workers’ compensation.

Another issue that tends to come up is a pre-existing back injury or condition. If you were in an accident years ago and hurt your back, and then you hurt it worse or re-injure it at work, you are still eligible for workers’ compensation. Don’t assume you can’t get benefits because you were already less than perfectly healthy. The law says you are still entitled to benefits, despite what your boss or supervisor might tell you.

We talk to a lot of people suffering from work-related back injuries. If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/3/13

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We were recently called by a woman who was sobbing on the phone. She had fallen off of a ladder at work two months prior and hurt her back pretty badly. The last time she had back troubles was 20 years prior and she hadn’t been to a doctor since for anything other than a physical. Now she has shooting pains down her leg and can barely walk.

She was crying because the insurance company assigned a company to monitor her case. This is getting more common where an allegedly independent outside company takes a look at your medical care and decides if you are injured, is it work related and do you need treatment. Of course these companies aren’t independent because their clients are only insurance companies and they make money by screwing over workers.

In this case they concluded that yes she was hurt on the job and yes she needs serious medical attention, but it’s not at all related to the fall, but instead is due to her problems from 20 years ago. So they decided that the work comp insurance company didn’t have to pay for a thing.

Of course my six year old child could tell you that this makes no sense. And the good news is that ever work comp Arbitrator is smarter than my six year old so when push comes to shove, our caller is going to win her case. This “independent” company does not have final say of any sort.

But it’s ridiculous that she even needed our help at all. She was perfectly healthy until she fell off a ladder at work. She has all the signs and symptoms of a herniated disc and the game this company is playing could seriously jeopardize her long term health. The problem is that they don’t look at you like you are another human being. They assume you are trying to scam them or somehow are full of it. And if you end up paralyzed as a result of their actions, they can sleep fine at night.

As you can probably tell, b.s. like this really pisses me off. Don’t let it frustrate you though. You can be helped and these phony denials by fake doctors are not the be all end all of your case. A good Illinois work injury attorney can solve your problem, get you the care you need and the benefits you are entitled to under the law.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

12/22/12

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My firm is unique in that we don’t want to handle every work injury that comes through the door. Instead we have created a state wide network of experienced Illinois workers’ compensation attorneys and we connect you with the right one for your case. It is our experience that usually a lawyer that is local to your area is best for you. While there are a ton of amazing law firms in Chicago, there are certainly many good ones as you get downstate. But that doesn’t stop some Chicago firms from trying to handle cases in locations that are five hours from their office.

The problem with this is that many of them send their young associates to handle the case because no experienced lawyer with a family wants to drive 8-10 hours roundtrip. I remember when I started off as an attorney I used to have to make the trek to places like Quincy, Alton, Mt. Vernon and Lawrenceville. Even Springfield was a long trip. It was either leave the house at 4 a.m. or head in the night before.

I remember being at these places knowing that I had very little training and clearly realizing that the Arbitrators were favoring the attorneys that they knew. It certainly hurt me on some cases. But I was the young associate and there was no way my 55 year old boss was going to make this trip. He told me I was paying my dues which I was. But of course it was at the expense of the client. I vowed that when I started my own firm I’d find a better way.

So when I recommend a lawyer it’s only someone who is both experienced at work comp and does a ton of work in the area where the case is being heard. They will know the Arbitrator and all of the attorneys that regularly appear at that court hearing location.

I thought of this recently when a woman called me looking for a recommendation of an attorney in southern Illinois. She had a good case, but the insurance company had stopped paying her benefits. She hired a big time Chicago law firm, but of course they sent their youngest lawyer to go handle the hearing. He was not only in over his head, but she told me that he spent most of his time playing a game on his I-phone. That is ridiculous and shows how much the head lawyers really don’t care about their clients.

I would never promise anyone a result, but I do promise that you’ll never lose a case because I referred you to a lawyer that is not known in the area where the case is taking place. There are good lawyers everywhere just as there are bad lawyers everywhere. Your choices might be more limited downstate than in Chicago, but you just need to know who the good ones are.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

12/16/12

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A reader asks:

I have a couple of questions regarding my husbands denied workers compensation claim. I was reading one of your story about a man who injured his shoulder and did not report it to his employer for eight months. A similar situation happened to my husband. He was hurt at work at the end of November 2011, after trying some anti inflammatory meds from his doctor and some physical therapy it was determined surgery was need. He reported it to his bosses and the end of January. He was past the 45 day mark. During the time from when he reported the injury to his bosses until his surgery in May he worked. A couple of days after the surgery he was denied workers compensation because of the 45 day deadline had passed. Do we have any kind of case or are we really out of luck.

The law in Illinois is that if you are hurt on the job, you must notify your employer within 45 days of that happening or you lose your rights to file a case. Notification can be as simple as telling your boss verbally something like, “I was lifting that pallet and felt a pop in my shoulder.” You don’t have to say you plan on filing a claim. You just need to give them an indication that you were hurt on the job so they can investigate it if they so choose.

This reader, in my opinion, is unfortunately out of luck. Had he not waited too long, the insurance company would have had to pay for his surgery, pay him for his missed time at work and provide a settlement when he is all better which in this case appears as if it would be somewhere in the mid five figures.

The safest way to report an accident is by e-mail or by getting an attorney to file a case for you before the 45 days has passed. You don’t want to lose your case because of some technicality. But rest assured, the insurance company and their team of lawyers will do whatever they can to find a loophole to deny you if possible.

Finally, a lot of our callers and clients ask us about reporting an injury when there is no accident, but instead they are hurt after doing the same activity over an over. This is known as repetitive trauma. It happens when you type a lot (carpal tunnel syndrome), lift a lot of heavy material (back injuries), do a lot of overhead work (shoulder, neck), etc. You can’t pinpoint exactly when you got hurt, but we know that the injury is aggravated by your job activities. You are on the clock to notify your employer of the problem when you know or reasonably should know that you have a problem that might be related to your job activities. When this is can be vague, but it’s often when you first see a doctor or when a doctor tells you that they think your problems are caused by your job. Just like with a specific accident date, the sooner you notify your employer, the safer you are.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

12/12/12

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So we were called by a nice woman who hurt her elbow on the job a month ago. It’s a clear cut work related injury and she is authorized off work by her doctor. Not only should all of her medical bills be paid, but she should be compensated for all of the time that she’s missed from work. But so far no bills have been paid and she hasn’t received a penny.

We referred her to a lawyer we work with on cases who is very aggressive and good at getting benefits paid in a timely manner. He immediately called the adjuster and learned that there is no reason why they haven’t paid except that the adjuster is in the Philippines and doesn’t really know what they are doing.

That’s right, the insurance company is outsourcing the handling of the case to someone in another country. As you can imagine, that makes investigating the case hard. It makes getting someone on the phone to talk about the case or late payments (we got lucky on this one) a challenge. You can only imagine the nightmare if this insurance adjuster ever needs to come to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission and testify in a case.

In many ways that last issue can be a huge advantage for injured workers when we file a petition for penalties and fees over late payments, but the bigger picture is that I don’t want any of my clients to be waiting for a TTD check or any other money that they are owed. You shouldn’t be punished because an insurance adjuster is sleeping while you are awake or doesn’t know the law or any other reason.

This recent case involved a case being handled by ESIS insurance. Who am I to tell them how to run their business, but I can tell you that years ago an insurance company outsourced all of their jobs to India and it was a disaster. And the disaster was more so for the insurance company because they spent more money on lawyer fees and penalties payments than they knew what to do with.

Our position in situations like this is to be as aggressive as possible if the overseas adjuster is screwing things up. It may be a problem that they are on the other side of the world, but it shouldn’t be your problem.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

12/10/12

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Sometimes you just trip and fall. Other times, you slip and fall on something hazardous that was in your way. Either way, you could be seriously injured. When it comes to getting workers’ compensation benefits, there is a difference between a random fall and a fall that was caused by something specific at work.

The reason there is a difference is because in order to get workers’ compensation benefits you have to prove that your injury was related to your job. Simply going down a set of stairs in your work building is not enough to make a fall work related. However, if there is something wrong with the stairs, or you were required to go quickly or you were carrying something heavy for your job, then it could make all the difference.

A random fall could happen to anyone, anywhere. The falls caused by doing a work activity happened because you were doing your job. The law says that you can’t get workers’ compensation for something that happens to you if you were at no greater risk than the general public, so proving how your fall was work related might be necessary.

We say this a lot, but being honest and thorough when talking to your doctor is important. When explaining how and when you were hurt, make sure you think through all the details. What really made you fall? Don’t make something up. But don’t leave anything out, either.

Witnesses and evidence can help in cases where a work-related explanation for your injury is just as probable as a non-work-related explanation. Writing everything down while it’s still fresh in your mind is a good idea, as well. Don’t dismiss details because you think they won’t matter.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

12/4/12

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Be prepared that the insurance company might try to get involved in your medical care, especially if you have a serious injury. If they see that your claim is going to cost them a lot of money, they’ll want to do what they can to minimize that, including monitoring your treatment and even trying to weigh in. We’ve seen it happen.

One of the first things they might try to do is speak with your doctor. You should stop this before it can even begin. The law says they can’t talk to your doctor without your consent. So, say no. If they ask to come with you to your appointment, or suggest that it’s routine, say no. Insurance companies only are allowed to speak with one of your medical providers if they’re requesting copies of records or bills. Anything that has to do with your treatment is your business.

We’ve seen insurance companies convince surgeons to delay surgery, talk doctors into different (cheaper) treatments, and influence work restrictions by convincing a doctor to say that an injured worker is able to do certain job duties that they shouldn’t be doing.

This is one example of how having an attorney can protect you. The insurance company knows it can get away with more tactics like these when a worker is unrepresented. They assume that you don’t know all the rules. They know that if they’re nice to you and appear like they’re helping you, you might trust them. Don’t let it work on you.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

11/20/12

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I don’t want to paint the picture that every insurance company is run by heartless monsters who don’t follow the law, but sometimes you wonder if it’s true.   Here are some recent examples of calls we’ve had from people that were hurt on the job in Illinois and had their benefits denied.

-          During his first week on the job, a car salesman slipped and fell on a wet floor.  The insurance company said that he wasn’t owed benefits because he was on a trial period.

-          Even though a nurse had her accident witnessed and it was on video tape, the insurance company said that the worker must have been hurt doing something else.

-          A caller worked two jobs and his boss admitted that he was aware of the 2^nd job.  Yet the insurance company did not want to pay benefits for loss wages from both jobs as required by law.

-          An insurance company told an injured worker that even though the injury was work related, it would take a long time to approve a needed surgery so he should use his own group insurance.

-          A claimant was receiving benefits for a wage loss and then was told that since the insurance company was negotiating a possible settlement with her that they didn’t need to continue payments.

-          Even though a worker got injured as a passenger in a car accident on the job, benefits were denied because he tested positive for smoking marijuana.

All of these denials are ridiculous, especially the last one.   The caller hadn’t smoked for a week, but even if he was high as a kite, he was a passenger!  There is no way that marijuana could have played a role in the accident as he was literally just sitting there.

The good news is that these denials can be overcome by any lawyer that has half a clue what they are doing.  But it shouldn’t even have to come to that.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

11/10/12

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It’s a sad reality that many injured workers in Illinois find themselves in a desperate financial situation after a job injury. If you were living pay check to pay check before, what are you going to do if you get hurt and an insurance company is refusing to pay your deserved benefits? We are extremely sympathetic to our clients in those situations and do whatever we can to move their cases as fast as possible without jeopardizing our chances for success.

But the reality is that if a real dispute exists, an insurance company can bleed you dry by delaying a case with an appeal. You may be on the right side of the argument, but that doesn’t mean a case can’t be delayed a year or two. So you may win in the end, but lose because of the delay and how it harms your life.

Some clients ask us about these companies that provide cash advances against eventual wins. Basically it’s legalized loan sharking. They give you some money and charge you an insane interest rate. You only pay them back if you win, but they only give you a loan if the win is guaranteed to happen some day.

What’s crazy is the amount that they will ask to be paid back. I was talking with a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer about this the other day because a mutual client of ours had received a $78,000 loan advance from one of these places. The case was ready to settle and they were claiming that he now had to pay them $800,000 to pay back the loan. That’s more than 10 times what they gave him less than three years ago!!! That is crazy.

There ought to a be a law against this type of stuff. For our clients or anyone who asks my opinion, our advice is not to get one of these loans unless you have absolutely no other options and are as desperate as you can be. Even then we tell you to get the bare minimum and negotiate the terms of the loan down as much as you can. If you are being offered a $25,000 loan, instead just take $5,000 and go back to them if that money runs out.

Beyond that, make sure your attorney is doing everything possible to get your case ready for trial. Illinois work comp cases can take a while, but that shouldn’t stop your law firm from moving as fast as possible. If the insurance company is going to lose and appeal, we would rather that happen now instead of six months from now. Press your attorney for updates about when you can get an actual trial. Once they have all of your medical records and depose your doctor (and the one for the insurance company) 95% of cases should be ready to go. And when a case is disputed and an injured worker is not getting paid, the law is that via a 19b motion you should jump to the front of the line of the people that want to get a trial.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

10/29/12

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Recently I was called by a man who had gone to trial in his Illinois work comp case and lost. He wanted someone to do an appeal and unfortunately we don’t do that when it’s not a case that we originally handled. He then wanted to know if I thought he had a good appeal. Part of the reason he lost the case is the Arbitrator found him not to be credible. It turns out that he has had at least ten previous cases, many of which were for very minor strains and bruises. It’s not that he can’t pursue work comp claims for those injuries, but when you file a claim for something that resulted in one or two medical visits, it makes you look phony, especially after you do it multiple times.

The risk of doing that, as shown by this guy, is that when you actually have a real serious injury, the insurance company is going to look at your past claims as a red flag and might fight your case, even if it’s legitimate. And if you have to go to trial and the Arbitrator sees that you’ve filed ten prior claims, it can certainly hurt your credibility.

Of course you can and should pursue any serious injury case that you have. Honest claims deserve to be compensated. That’s what we fight for every day of the week. But we’ll never take on a finger contusion, or toe sprain or any other superficial injury because those cases make us look bad and make the client look bad. Lots of lawyers will take that type of case with the hope that a bigger case will come down the road. Good for them. I’d rather spend my time working with people that need me now.

But in the big picture, your case is judged by many things. Mostly it’s the specifics of how you got hurt, but there are many other things: What did you tell your doctor? When did you report your injury to your employer? Was it witnessed? What activities do you do out of work? How credible do you appear as a witness? Is there anything in your background that makes you look bad?

Honesty and credibility is what it’s all about. So even if all of your minor nicks and cuts are legitimate, if you file a claim it could come back to bite you when you really need the workers’ compensation benefits that are offered by our state.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

10/13/12

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Most calls we get are from a worker who has just one job and gets hurt while working.  Every now and then we’ll get contacted by someone who has two jobs and gets hurt on their main (full-time) job.  Much rarer, but it happens, is the person that gets hurt while working their part time job.  This can cause problems for them if they are unable to work their full time job.

For the most part these cases are just like any other work injury, but there are a few things you should know:

1. As long as your part time employer knew that you had another job and didn’t object to you having another job, your wages from both jobs will be paid while you are off work due to your injury.  So if you make $600 a week on your full time job and $300 a week on your part time job, you will get paid from the insurance company as if you earn $900 from that job.
2. Let’s say you can’t work the full time job, but can work the part time job.  The insurance company will have to pay you for the partial financial loss.
3. Same would hold true if you can work the full time job, but not the part time job.  This is very common as often doctors want to limit their patients to a 40 hour work week as they recover.
4. The bad news in these scenarios is that if you miss an extended time from work, you could lose your full time job.  The slight silver lining is that workers’ compensation would have to make a payment related to that loss.
5. You don’t have any less rights because you were hurt on a part time job.
6. These cases are often highly scrutinized by insurance companies, especially when there are no witnesses.  They will be doing everything they can to argue that you must be lying and that you were really hurt on your other job.  So it’s very important to document how you got hurt and report it to your employer right away.  Delaying this will cause red flags to pop up and could potentially cause problems with your case.  Insurance companies are always looking for any angle not to pay on a case.  So as always, be honest, but be quick about it as well.

There are some other minor differences, but again, for the most part it’s just like any other case.  So don’t panic, get the medical treatment you need and take things from there.

 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

10/11/12

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One common phrase that we hear around our office from potential clients is that “I’m not the suing type.” I’m still not 100% sure who is the suing type as I’ve yet to meet anyone that would rather be hurt and have a claim than healthy and no claim. Be that as it may, Illinois workers’ compensation cases are not lawsuits, but rather claims for benefits similar to when you use your health insurance if you are sick.

So every now and then I’ll get a call from someone whose friend or relative is the one that got hurt on the job and they want nothing to do with lawyers. I don’t blame them. I talk to lawyers every day and often want nothing to do with them.

Typically what is happening is that the injured worker, who just wants to get back to work, is being jerked around by the work comp insurance company. But they’d rather be jerked around than talk to someone like me because it’s their belief that all attorneys are scumbags. While there are certainly many law firms our there that employ lawyers with no morals, for the most part even the lazy ones are normal people that you would get a long with in a social setting.

Because the injured worker doesn’t want to talk to anyone, the insurance company is able to break the law and take advantage of them. While the worker just wants to get back to work, because of the insurance company games, the worker actually risks their health.

A recent caller had a relative who needed knee surgery from a job accident. Every doctor felt that way yet the surgery was still not approved. So the employee sits around in pain all day. If he waits too long he risks that no surgery will be able to fix his problem because the damage will be severe.

A problem like this is incredibly simple (usually) for a lawyer to solve. If the relative wasn’t so stubborn we could easily help him and he wouldn’t even have to meet with us or talk to us much. But in a weird way he’d rather hurt himself than talk to a lawyer. That’s incredibly bizarre to me and is rare, but it happens.

Not everyone needs a lawyer, but if you are being messed with you certainly do. If you let them mess with you, it’s your life and health that is on the line. The insurance companies know that some people will just let it happen so that’s why they do it. The good news is that you can easily stop this bad behavior, but it’s up to you, not the ones that care about you to step up and do something.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

10/9/12

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There are some lawyers out there that will tell you what you want to hear. If that’s what you want, you are at the wrong place. We believe in direct, plain English, honesty.

I thought of this recently when a lawyer I know was complaining about a client that did not want to attend an Independent Medical Examination (IME). These are one time exams (although follow ups can happen) by a doctor that the insurance company chooses. Some of these doctors are hacks who are brought on to the case to say whatever the insurance company wants them to say. Many doctors make a few hundred thousand dollars a year from just performing these exams which can be as short as five minutes.

So apparently the injured worker of the lawyer I know didn’t want to go to the IME because he heard the doctor was a hired gun and also because the exam was 40 miles from his house and he didn’t like driving on the highway. The insurance company, as required by law, did send him a check for the gas expenses and he has not medical basis for not traveling that far. As a result he has to go to the exam and if he doesn’t his work comp benefits can be ended. In rare cases, if you fail to go to an IME doctor after repeated requests it could cause your case to end.

Now if there was a valid medical reason he couldn’t travel that far or they were asking him to travel to harass him (e.g. if they wanted him to see a doctor in southern Illinois and he lives in Chicago) then we could file a motion to have an Arbitrator rule that he doesn’t have to attend. But to go from a place like Joliet to Buffalo Grove or wherever, while it may be a pain in the butt, it’s not so unreasonable that you can get out of it.

Telling a client no is never fun, but you get in trouble when you have a lawyer that won’t tell it to you straight. We’ll always fight for you when there is something to fight for, but if your goals aren’t realistic then you need to know that too.

In the end the injured worker did go to the exam and as expected, the doctor was against him. That sucks, but that is the process we use in Illinois and the good news is that the IME doctor is not the be all end all of the case. He can still go to trial and given the awful reputation of the IME doctor, the injured worker will probably win.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

10/3/12

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It makes me laugh (in a cringing way) when I see ads from Illinois work comp law firms that boast of their 99% winning percentage.  It’s marketing b.s. because they don’t tell you their winning percentage in cases that they’ve taken to trial and they count getting a $500 settlement for a client as a “win.”  The reality is that every attorney who is actually willing to take a case to trial and fight for their client will lose sometime.  I lost the first trial I was ever in and while I’ve won way more than I’ve lost, there is no honest attorney who will tell you that they win every time. 

We are fairly selective in the cases that we take on which certainly limits our loss.  If our client is caught lying to us, the doctors or anyone else, we probably won’t represent them anymore.  If when we interview and learn the facts of your case we determine that you don’t have a good case, we won’t file it with the hopes that we’ll get lucky and win.  We’d rather focus on helping seriously injured clients that have good cases to pursue. To me that ‘s a much better way to run a law firm than some firms out there that will take every single case that walks through the door.  To me, if a lawyer gets a reputation of taking on bad cases, it will hurt their clients with good cases.

But even with all of that, there are times when a lawyer can think that they have a strong case and they end up losing.  Here are five reasons why you might lose your Illinois workers’ compensation arbitration hearing.  The second five will be tomorrow:

1. You gave a recorded statement that gets twisted around.  After your accident, most insurance adjusters will call you and want to record an interview with you about what happened.  They can’t record you without your permission and you don’t have to allow it.  If you do, don’t be surprised if they twist your words against you.  For example, if you slip and fall at work, the law says that to win benefits you have to be able to explain why you fell.  Typically after a fall where you are hurt, you are not checking to see what you fell on.  So let’s assume you slipped on a wet floor, but don’t know what exactly made you slip.  Instead of asking, “Why did you fall?”, a trained insurance adjuster will say something like, “You fell, but have no idea why, is that right?”   Well, that’s a yes/no question.  If you answer yes, you will lose your case. If you explain that you don’t know what you fell on, but the floor was slippery, you will win.  But they won’t ask you in a way that calls for an explanation.  Two years later when at trial, a slick defense attorney will take a copy of that recorded statement and use it against you.  They will argue to the Arbitrator that two years ago you had no idea why you fell, but magically today you have an explanation.  It’s a game and they are playing to win.

2. Your boss convinces you to lie to a doctor and state that you weren’t hurt at work.  This is a common one as many employers will tell their workers to lie and say, “Don’t worry, just get me the bill and I’ll pay for it.”  Wanting to be a “good” employee you go along with it, but it turns out you are more seriously hurt than you realized.  All of the sudden nobody is paying the bill and when you later change your story to state that you got hurt on the job, the insurance company doesn’t believe you.  You won’t lose this case every time, but it sure makes you look like a liar and really hurts your credibility on the witness stand.

3. The insurance company hires a surveillance company and they catch you doing something you shouldn’t be doing.  Imagine this scenario.  You see the doctor and you are honest in telling him that you have shooting pains going down your leg.  He tells you that you should not lift anything that weighs more than five pounds, send you for physical therapy, prescribes pain meds and tells you to come back in a month.  Two weeks after that appointment you are feeling really good.  You haven’t been working because of your restrictions and the therapy seems to be helping.  Your cute neighbor that you’ve always had a crush on rings your doorbell and asks you if you can help her bring a TV in from her car.  In your head you know that you shouldn’t, but you are feeling great, it will only take a second and you’ve always wanted to go inside of her apartment.  So you go out and bring in the TV.  Your pain doesn’t get worse.  All of the sudden you get notified that your TTD benefits are being cut off and the insurance company will no longer authorize medical care.  This is because a private investigator caught you moving the TV and it makes you look like you are lying to your doctor.  You can imagine what an Arbitrator would say when they saw a video tape like this.  While you may have legitimate excuses for what you did, if it looks like a liar, and acts like a liar then it’s a liar.  And your case will blow up.

4. The law just isn’t on your side.  At least twice a week I get called or e-mailed by someone that wants to bring a workers’ compensation case for stress that has been caused by the job.  They are working long hours with a boss that yells at them and are under tight deadlines.  Sometimes they have panic attacks or a nervous breakdown.  Other times their doctor takes them off work because of work related stress.  Unfortunately, under Illinois workers’ compensation law, there is nothing that I can do for these people.  The law does not allow for compensation for stress related injuries unless they are severe and sudden.  An example would be if you saw a co-worker have an arm ripped off in a machine and this led to nightmares or if you had a gun pointed at you in a robbery.  Otherwise you will not likely prevail even if it’s true that your job has caused your problems.

5. Your employer is willing to lie under oath.  The law in Illinois is that you have to notify your employer within 45 days of an accident that you were hurt on the job.  Usually this is done verbally.  On occasion, an employer will get mad that a case has been filed and to try and stick it to their worker they will lie and say that the first they ever heard about the injury was when the case was filed.  Every now and then, that is enough to blow a case up.  The best way to prevent that is to notify your boss in writing.  We usually suggest that you do it by e-mail.  Another way to do it is to formally file your case through the state before the 45 days is up.  That’s a sure fire way to prevent a liar from screwing you over.

So there are five reasons why you might lose a trial, sometimes even when you should win.  Come back in two days for part two and as always, call us at (312) 346-5578 with any questions.

 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

9/29/12

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While Illinois does have a fairly worker friendly law when it comes to workers’ compensation benefits, it’s not enough to simply be at work when an injury occurs. To win your case, you need to show that something about the job increased your risk of injury. So if you lift a box and your back pops, the fact that you had to lift a box increased your injury risk. If you are simply talking to a co-worker when you have tremendous back pain, nothing about your job contributed to that problem so you would not have a case.

This law is the basis for all legal analysis in work comp. One injury that really uses a deep analysis of it is when a worker has a heart attack.

I’ve had two calls recently from spouses of workers who had heart attacks. I feel both situations are cases that we can prevail on.

Situation #1 is somewhat obvious. A laborer was working in the 100+ degree heat we had in July. His shifts were 8-10 hours without a break for one week straight. He was lifting over 100 pounds of material and using a jack hammer. During this time there were warnings for people to stay inside. To me the job clearly aggravated his condition and increased his risk of injury. The heart attack occurred at the job site as well.

Situation #2 isn’t as obvious. Again we had a laborer’s wife call us. Her husband was working in the heat, although he did get breaks. He was, however, lifting up to 200 pounds and under a deadline to finish a job. As a result his days were 14 hours long. After three days he came home, told his wife he wasn’t feeling well and then told her to call 911. He had a heart attack at home. Even though he wasn’t at work when it happened, to me it’s still a workers’ compensation case because his job duties increased his risk of the heart attack and certainly the injury happened close enough in time to when he was doing all of this hard work. It would be much different if the heart attack was after a week of vacation. The point is that you don’t have to be “on the job” when an accident or injury occurs to be covered.

Compare these two to a guy that works a desk job and has a heart attack while typing. Even if that person is working long hours, there is really nothing about that which is overly stressful on one’s heart, especially compared to what most people go through on a daily basis. A case like that would usually be denied.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

9/25/12

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I will talk to anyone about any Illinois work injury case. I give honest, blunt advice because that’s how I like to be treated. It’s my policy to tell people what my opinion is, not what they want to hear. You may not like that (fortunately most people that call me seem to appreciate it) and if you don’t, it’s your case. You don’t have to work with me.

But a recent caller who was so furious that I wouldn’t take his case on also highlights a good point. A lawyer does not have to take on a client. This specific caller described to me a scenario that would not be a work related injury. He then brought up a claim from 2006 which I could not help with. He then tried to bring up two more possible cases. At that point it seemed to me as if the caller was just trying to figure out a way to make a claim and get what in his mind should be some easy money. At that point I decided that I would not want to represent someone like that and told him that I was going to end the call.

There have been other times when we haven’t taken on cases, even if the actual case is good. If I catch a client in a lie then I won’t touch the case. Being honest is the #1 thing to me and when a caller starts with a lie then I’m not going to help them. It makes me or any lawyer I work with look bad and hurts our other clients. If your lawyer gets a reputation for working with liars then every client will be pre-judged.

I’ve turned down others who started off the conversation by screaming at my staff. Our customer service is un-matched, but there are times when you will be put on hold if you call. It typically means that we are talking to someone else, but I’ve never not returned a phone call within 24 hours and it’s usually the same day within minutes. But if you start off by being rude to our staff, no matter how frustrated you are with things that have nothing to do with us, we’ll turn you down.

I tell callers all of the time that they do not have to work with an attorney who doesn’t return their calls, yells at them, talks down to them, disrespects them, doesn’t answer their questions, lies to them, etc. There is no cost for firing a lawyer and hiring a new one. But at the same time, while there are 70,000 attorneys in Illinois, none of them have to take on your case either. So my honest advice is to put your best foot forward. An attorney is there to help you and if you want the best representation possible then observe the Golden Rule and treat them how you’d want to be treated. They might not take on your case or tell you what you want to hear, but I’ve seen plenty of good cases rejected or screwed up because the lawyer and client can’t get along.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

9/23/12

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There are a handful of Illinois workers’ compensation law firms that get a lot of their clients from unethical medical providers. By that I mean that these are doctors who aren’t interested in the health of their patients, but rather are focused on billing as much as they can. These lawyers refer their clients to these “doctors” and the doctors scratch the back of the lawyers be sending them injured workers.

The injured worker doesn’t do anything wrong. They simply trust their lawyer and why wouldn’t they? But what happens is that the doctor gets such a bad reputation that the insurance company and Judges don’t believe a word that they say.

Recently a defense attorney friend of mine was telling me about a case where an injured worker had been sent to one of these clinics by his lawyer. The injury was a back strain that usually resolves itself with a few weeks of physical therapy. In this case, the doctor billed the injured worker for over $90,000 worth of medical care!!! That is unethical and of course the insurance company wouldn’t pay for it.

They protested the bills and while the worker was in limbo and worried about his credit report, he also couldn’t get his case settled because the insurance company wouldn’t offer a penny until the bill issue was resolved. The medical provider ended up cutting their bill by over $75,000 and the word on the street is that they are being investigated by the State for insurance fraud in this case and others.

We have been offered numerous times (probably over 50) by doctors and chiropractors to establish a referral relationship. We have declined every time because I don’t feel that I or any other lawyer is qualified to tell a client where they have to go to for medical treatment. We’ll offer our opinion of a specific doctor or give three names to choose from, but I’d never tell a client that they must treat with the doctor I am suggesting.

If you run across a lawyer that tells you where to treat or a doctor that is trying to give legal advice, the best thing you can do is politely decline. You are in charge of your life and if you let someone else take charge, it will probably screw up your case and even worse, mess up your health.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

9/9/12

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A recent caller was upset. He had hurt his back while working in Palatine a few months ago and was sent to a Buffalo Grove doctor for an Independent Medical Exam (“IME”). This is a one time exam the insurance company can request to have one of their doctors examine an injured worker. It’s very common and often these doctors say what the insurance company wants to hear.

The caller was mad because he’s done everything the insurance company asked for and now they won’t give him a copy of the report. To make matters worse, he hasn’t received a check for being off work for five weeks. He then called the doctor whose office told him, rather rudely, that they don’t have to give him the report and they won’t.

So he called us wanting to know what to do.

There are some matters you can take care of on your own and some that need an attorney. In this case, he needs to get a formal case filed and then issue a subpoena to the doctor for a copy of the report. This is what a lawyer does. To boot we’d also make the doctor provide a copy of the letter the insurance company wrote to them and their entire file.

On top of this, we’d likely file a 19b trial motion for the missed time and a petition for penalties and fees to punish the delay in sending the check.

For the caller this is an emotional situation and that’s understandable. The insurance company is screwing with his life. But for a lawyer, we take the emotion out of a situation and focus on how to solve a problem. In this case, it’s an easy problem for us to solve. And that should be why you get a lawyer. To solve a problem or prevent one from happening.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

9/7/12

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That is a real common question we get from callers and readers.  It’s also a really straight forward answer.

The main cost is an attorney fee of 20% of what you get for a settlement or Arbitrator award at trial when the case is over.  There are no up front fees or hourly fees.  If any work injury attorney asks you for even a penny that is a huge red flag and you should run away from them.

That 20% fee does not increase if you have to switch lawyers.  Total lawyer fees can never exceed 20%.  So if you fire your lawyer and hire a new one, they don’t each get 20%.  Instead they’d have to split it.

The only other costs should be expenses for a case.  In a complex case like medical malpractice those expenses can be in the six figures.  That’s not how it is for Illinois work comp.  Our cases typically have expenses less than $100 and those are for costs in subpoenaing medical records from your providers.  Even in cases that go to trial, the expenses are usually limited to a doctor fee for their deposition and other fees like paying for a court reporter.  Those total costs would likely be in the mid four figures.  In my career I can only recall one case where a settlement contract listed expenses that got in to the five figures.  That was a complex case with multiple doctors that needed to testify and it went on for years.

These expenses should all be advanced by the lawyer and when the case is over (or any time you request it) you should get a breakdown of what they have spent on your claim.  It is our policy to notify a client whenever we are spending more than what a subpoena costs.  It’s just a courtesy as in the end the money will come out of the settlement.

Even for these expenses, a lawyer should front those costs for you.  If they don’t or can’t it is a very bad sign as to the health of their practice.

That is it.  Unless your lawyer has to spend a night out of town or pay for a flight (and this would be just to take a deposition or investigate an accident scene if you were hurt out of state) there should be no charges for travel costs.  I know of one sneaky firm that does bill their clients for gas mileage to go from places like Chicago to Wheaton for a court appearance, but that to me is total nonsense and even the bad firms in town don’t do that as far as I know.  That is just a cost of doing business as should be things like mailing letters, making photo copies, etc.

While it’s not the most important question in the world given how low the costs are in most cases, before you hire a lawyer for any type of case, I encourage you to ask the lawyer to explain what they do charge for and what they don’t and get a commitment from them up front.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

8/30/12

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A recent caller to my office was working outside on one of our hot summer days (seriously, this summer has been crazy). He suffered from a bad case of heat stroke. Normally this is not the type of case I would get involved with, but it was not his first time that he had heat stroke. He also has some kidney damage and his doctor advised him to get a new job that doesn’t require him to work outside. The doctor told him that once you have heat stroke once, you become much more susceptible to it happening again.

The opinion of the doctor in this case was the most important factor in our office looking at this case for representation. In fact, the doctor’s opinion is the most important one in any work comp case in Illinois (although I guess if you go to trial, it’s the Arbitrator that matters most).

If you don’t have a doctor in your corner about your injuries being work related and/or permanent, you have basically no chance of winning your case (and these lawyers who claim they never lose, but count a $500 settlement as a win are note winning). This is especially true if you don’t have an accident that clearly caused an injury. If you fall off a ladder and shatter your leg, you don’t need a strong doc to tell you how you hurt yourself, although you may need him/her to give an opinion on the long term damages or treatment that you need.

But if you have an injury from repetitive work or if you had a heart attack or if you waited two weeks before getting treatment or have sun stroke, etc., then it’s really important to have a strong, credible physician who will state (assuming they believe it) that your injuries are in fact work related.

It’s not your job to find a doctor to testify for you. Your lawyer should advise you what questions to ask your doctor, ask those questions for you or send you to an independent doctor for an exam.

As an injured worker, what you can do to help your case is: 1. Be honest with your doctor. Don’t embellish your problems and don’t undersell them either. 2. Be direct. Tell them how you got hurt with specifics. If they ask you to write it down, be clear. 3. Be informative. You can’t expect a physician to state your job caused an injury if they don’t know your job duties. If you type for four hours a day, they need to know that. If you lift boxes they need to know how much they weigh. If you are walking a lot, how far are you going?

Finally, you can choose the medical professional that you treat with. If you don’t know a good one, ask for a recommendation from your lawyer or a physician. And just like with a lawyer, if the doctor seems sleazy or doesn’t give good service, don’t go with them. Unlike lawyers, it’s much harder to switch doctors.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

8/26/12

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I don’t want to paint every insurance company as some big meanie ogre that wants to do everything they can to screw you over, but some times their actions are so ridiculous, you have to wonder if they are really run by robots instead of humans.

I thought of this recently when I got a call from a really nice truck driver who has never filed a work injury claim in his life. He’s been hurt a bunch, but never injured to the point where he needed more than Advil or a couple of doctor’s visits.

But recently he was unloading his truck and his back popped. He experienced a pain unlike any other that he had felt before. Worse yet, he was hundreds of miles from home in St. Louis so he had to check in to a strange hospital in a town he doesn’t know with no friends or family around. He had tried to drive through the pain, but it was so intense that he was worried he’d crash the truck and kill someone. So basically he did the right thing for his health and the right thing for his employer.

As he lay in the hospital bed, the doctor he saw told him that he needed immediate surgery as the nerves in his back were really compressed. Nothing else would relieve his pain or give him a chance for a normal recovery. This was on a Sunday and surgery was scheduled for Monday. He called the workers’ compensation insurance company that morning for surgery approval. He didn’t need to do this, but didn’t want to create any problems. What the adjuster said next just floored me.

She told him that before he had surgery, she wanted him to find his way to Chicago so that he could see one of their hand picked doctors to determine if surgery was needed. Uhm, what part of laying in the hospital bed didn’t she understand. It was the most insensitive and ridiculous request I’ve ever heard of.

The insurance company does have a right to request that you see a doctor, but can’t stop you from getting emergency treatment. But of course they didn’t care about that. They wanted this guy to get out of the hospital bed and somehow get to Chicago to see some doctor. Certainly they were asking him to travel so far because the doctor they chose is a hired gun. If they really wanted an honest evaluation, they could have paid to have some St. Louis doctor go see him. But they weren’t about what makes sense or what is moral.

The bad news was this request delayed his surgery by a day. The good news is that he did get the surgery and does appear to be on the road to recovery. That recovery could have been screwed up by a delay, but fortunately was not.

In the big picture, this just shows that insurance companies are businesses and their main focus is usually their bottom line and nothing else. If there was collateral damage from this delay, that would not have concerned them if they saved some money. It sounds harsh, but it’s the truth and as an injured worker you need to be cautious and really look out for yourself. Because I promise you that the insurance company is not.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

8/18/12

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We get a lot of calls about this issue. While many employers are flexible and truly want you to get better faster, there are some who simply can’t let you take the time or are unwilling to do so.

The general rule is that if your healthcare provider (doctor, physical therapist, etc.) has early or late hours that are outside your work hours then your employer can request that you go during your time off. However, if your doctor’s office only is open during the hours you are working, then your employer is going to have to be flexible.

So if you have the option of going outside of work hours, then you may have to. This isn’t always what people want to hear. After working a full day, they want to get home or see their families. But we want to tell it like it is and that’s the unfortunate reality for some people.

You might consider asking your doctor or therapist if they can be flexible on their hours. Some will agree to see you a little earlier or later than their normal business hours. Some won’t agree to do this, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Also, talk to your therapist about whether a home rehab program will work. Some people are able to get good results by doing exercises at home on their own and seeing the therapist for less frequent check-ins.

Every injury is different and every employer is different. The bottom line is that you need to see your doctor and keep up with therapy. Hopefully you can compromise either with your boss or with your doctor, or find some other creative solution that works for you.

As lawyers, this is usually a problem we can help fix. If you need our help let us know.
 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

8/12/12

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There is a lot to think about after a work injury, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Here are five things to focus on, in addition to your health of course.

1. If your injury was caused by your job, you are entitled to coverage of 100% of your medical bills that are reasonable and related to your injury. You also are entitled to a portion of your lost wages if you can’t work while you recover. You don’t have to go to court to get these benefits (in fact you aren’t allowed to sue your employer for a work injury). If your injury was work related, you should get benefits.

2. To get started, make sure you notify your employer (within 45 days) and file an Application for Adjustment of Claim with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. You have three years from the date of your injury to file this form, but we recommend doing it as soon as possible.

3. If your claim is denied, or if you aren’t receiving the right amount of benefits (your wages were miscalculated, for example), contact an attorney. You’ll also want an attorney if your injury is serious and/or permanent.

4. Your claim will be assigned to an arbitrator, who acts like a judge in your case. If there is a dispute over wage benefits or medical coverage, you can request a hearing before the arbitrator, who will make a decision.

5. The majority of work injury cases settle, meaning the worker gets a lump sum payment that ends their claim. Some cases go to trial instead. Both of these are too far down the road to worry about right away. It’s even too soon to speculate about an outcome, including how much your case is worth. But know that if you end up without a full recovery, you’ll most likely receive compensation for your loss.

There are other things to consider, but these are some of the basics. If you are struggling with your claim, or have questions about how to get started, contact us anytime for a free review of your case.
 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

8/8/12

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There are a couple of deadlines that every injured worker should be aware of. These deadlines are important because if you miss them, your claim can be denied.

The first one to remember is notifying your employer. You must notify your employer of a work injury within 45 days of the date of your injury. Notification doesn’t have to be in a specific form. Some employers have accident forms, which is fine. Others have nothing – in which case you should write up your notice. The notification is not required to be in writing, but it’s a good idea to put it in writing anyway in case your employer (or their insurance company) tries to argue that you didn’t give proper notice. It’s a good idea to include the date, as well, and make sure to keep a copy for your records.

The second deadline to remember is for filing a claim. You have three years to file a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. The official form is called an Application for Adjustment of Claim, and it is filed with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. When you’re injured at work you are entitled to coverage of medical bills and payment for a portion of your lost wages if you miss work during your treatment and/or recovery. The deadline is three years from the date of your injury. Some injuries don’t occur on a specific date, such as repetitive stress injuries that accumulate over time. In those cases the three year deadline starts on the date that you knew, or should have known, that your injury was caused by your job. If you have received benefits already, then you have two years from the last date of any payment/benefits you received in order to file a claim some times you can go beyond the three year time limit, but I wouldn’t mess with it if I were you.

Note: Just because your claim is denied by the insurance company for missing a deadline doesn’t mean that they were right to do so. Your attorney can request a hearing before an arbitrator and argue your side of things and hopefully obtain the benefits you’re entitled to. They don’t have final say even though they will act like they do.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

7/31/12

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There is nothing, and I mean nothing, more important than your health. And an experience by a recent caller shows that ignoring your health after a work injury could really cause problems.

The caller was working at a small factory when he hurt his back. He went to the doctor right away, but became concerned that his boss was mad about the injury so he ignored his doctor’s advice to get follow up medical care. He took care of himself with ice and Tylenol. He was in a ton of pain, but did his best to work through the pain. This was about one year ago.

Earlier this year he got laid off when the factory closed. He went for a new job and failed the physical because of his back problems. His wife finally was able to convince him to go to the doctor and a MRI showed that he has a herniated disc that may require surgery if physical therapy doesn’t cure him. The doctor could not say for sure that the problem was related to the work injury, but thinks it might be. He did say that likely one month or so of treatment would have made him better at the time.

So now he sits here with no job, a terrible back that got worse because of his delaying medically treatment and while he may have a valid workers’ compensation claim, he’s made it incredibly difficult to win his case. In the best case scenario, we’d have to take depositions of multiple doctors and go to trial. While that is going on, months will pass by and he will be no better off physically.

I get why he didn’t want to rock the boat last year, but he was looking out for the company and not himself. They don’t care about him and as a result he’s screwed now that they are closed and he is ill.

The moral of the story is that if you aren’t feeling well, don’t be a hero. Go to the doctor. The longer you delay getting treatment, the more likely you are to have a long term injury. Major problems don’t just resolve themselves. And if you ignore this advice you might end up like this poor guy. Even with the best lawyer in the world, his life is going to be miserable for a long time.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

7/23/12

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We get a lot of calls from people who have injured their back on the job. In fact, it’s probably the most common call that we get.

Many of these callers start their medical treatment off by going to a chiropractor. If you have a minor strain, that is fine, but if you have radiating pain down your leg which is a sign of a herniated disc, in our opinion you need to go see an orthopedic doctor.

Most chiro’s are good at short term care. They aren’t usually equipped to treat a long term problem like a herniated disc. You tell you have a disc problem by getting a MRI. Orthopedic doctors regularly treat and cure herniated disc issues in their patients.

But please don’t take this post as health advice. We are not doctors and don’t tell our clients who to treat with unless they ask for help. Nothing is more important than your health and we trust you to make the right decision for your life. This recommendation is a legal one.

We say that because courts over the years have made crystal clear that they will always favor the opinion of an orthopedic doctor over a chiropractor. So if the insurance company sends you to an orthopedic doctor for an exam and they testify against you at a trial, an Arbitrator or Judge is likely to give much greater respect to their opinion compared to a chiropractor.

In fact, if you try to just rely on a chiro and the insurance company has an ortho, we’d bet any amount of money that you’d lose your case.

Nothing says you can’t see both doctors as long as that treatment is reasonable and necessary. But you don’t want to lose a case because you didn’t follow legal precedent.

This all happened because some chiropractors over treat and over bill their patients. Much like how some lawyers get lumped in with the other bad apples, courts tend to look at all chiropractors as over treating if they don’t solve a health problem within a month or so.

So if your back is bothering you and you are going on a month or more. Go see an orthopedic doctor if you want to help your health. And your case.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

7/19/12

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It’s not uncommon for us to get a call or e-mail that goes something like this: “I was hurt on my job a little over a year ago. I received treatment that the insurance company paid for. My doctor told me after six months of treatment to come back to him if my back started to feel bad again. Well, it did recently and when I called the workers comp insurance people, they told me that my case was closed and that if I wanted treatment I would have to put it through my group insurance. My doctor is mad because he says this is all a part of my original work injury.”

This whole scenario is just a typical insurance company trick. They make their money by limiting what they pay you. So if they tell you that your case is closed and you go along with it, that will save them money. The reality is that your case isn’t closed and if you file an application for adjustment of claim with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (this is what a lawyer does for you) within three years of your accident date or two years from the last payment of benefits, then your case will be re-opened.

Sometimes we “re-open” a case just to get a settlement for our clients. Other times we do it to make sure the injured workers we help don’t have to foot the medical bills in any way of an injury that was caused by the job.

Whatever the scenario, there are really only two ways to close a case. One is to wait too long to file it. Two is to enter in to a settlement agreement that is approved by an Arbitrator. That’s it. This probably isn’t surprising, but insurance companies will tell you thinks that are misleading and/or just plain lies. It’s not personal, it’s business. Their job is to look out for their bottom line. Your job is to look out for you and your health. If they tell you something that you don’t like, don’t just automatically accept it. Speak to a lawyer, learn your rights and make an educated decision. They don’t want you to educate yourself which should tell you clearly that you need to.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

7/9/12

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There are two workers’ compensation law firms in Chicago that have lots of clients. They also have lots of clients that are not happy with them. In fact, although there are many bigger firms out there than these two, when I get a caller telling me that they don’t like their attorney it’s usually one of them. One is a yeller and belittles his clients. The other doesn’t return phone calls, lies and has so many lawyers quit working for him that I’ve seen cases where more than five lawyers took over a file in a two year period. Callers are usually shocked when I can guess who their lawyer is based on what their complaints are.

The liar had a client call me recently and what he did to that client was immoral. There was a big injury that settled for $100,000. That results in a $20,000 attorney fee and they were entitled to recoup their expenses of a couple hundred dollars for medical records. That amount for medical records is actually really high, but it’s not unheard of. This lawyer had the client sign a settlement statement that showed they would receive approximately $79,800 after the fee and expenses. That’s pretty typical.

But what the lawyer did after this is theft. He added on additional charges for travel costs and some consulting company, more than $500 altogether. First off, you can’t tell a client they are going to get $x and then give them less than that after they sign. Second, I’ve never, ever heard of a lawyer charging travel costs in a work comp case unless they have to stay over night at a hotel or fly somewhere for a deposition. For example, I once flew to Kansas City to take the deposition of a treating doctor. I took the 6 a.m. flight, rented a car and then took the last flight back to Chicago. I billed for the car and flight. I could have stayed in a hotel the night before and billed that too, but I didn’t want to add expenses.

However this lawyer billed for gas charges from going from his Chicago office to the Geneva court. That is absurd!!! He likely has many cases in Geneva and I would assume he’s billing them all. There is no basis in the law for doing this in my opinion and if he was going to do it, he should have notified the client before they hired him. I have NEVER heard of a law firm for workers’ billing this charge. Beyond that, they added a fee for some consulting company that the client knew nothing about. I can’t imagine what benefit this provided.

I hear horror stories about this lawyer all the time, but this one takes the cake. I don’t know how he still has a law license and hopefully he won’t because the client promised that they would report him to the Attorney Registration and Disability Commission. That is the agency that can suspend lawyers for unethical conduct. And if anyone deserves to lose the ability to practice law, it’s this guy. I’m just shocked by the greed and lack of morals.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

7/1/12

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We often get calls from injured workers that have an attorney already and want us to take over their case. Depending on the case issues and how far along the case is, we will consider it. Before we do though, we want to know what is wrong with the current lawyer. Often we can help the caller realize that sticking it out is the right thing to do. Other times it’s clear that they have the wrong attorney. Either the lawyer is a yeller, doesn’t return phone calls or worst of all, doesn’t really handle work injury cases. The biggest complaint we get is that the attorney doesn’t seem to know what they are doing or doesn’t explain what is going on to their client.

Most recently this happened to someone who called us and felt that his Waukegan workers compensation attorney could not tell her what the strategy was to get her benefits reinstated. I had never heard of her lawyer before which isn’t a great sign for them, but hey, I don’t know everyone. But what is definitely a bad sign is that the lawyer couldn’t explain the simple and common trial motion he had to file to try and win the case and worse yet was that he didn’t file the motion at all. When the client did some research and asked him what a 19b is (that’s the motion he needs to file), he basically brushed it off and told her not to worry.

Don’t worry???? She has no money coming in and can’t get the medical care she needs. Of course she is worried.

In the big picture, not every attorney is going to give perfect customer service. However, if they can’t explain things to you, how are they going to argue your position to the Arbitrator if the case goes to trial or to the insurance company if there are settlement negotiations? They probably can’t and that will hurt you.

Again, we always try and encourage callers to stick with their lawyers if they can. When these lawyers are a nightmare though, you must realize that you get one shot only to win your case. It’s better to jump ship before it’s too late.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

6/19/12

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A reader asks:

I sprained my ankle at work and my employer has been taking care of my workers comp. however I have a question. can my employer force me to have my follow-up appointments and therapy appointments on my own time, or can I schedule them during my normal work schedule?

This is a common question of our clients and readers. The answer is it depends. If the doctor or therapist that you want to see only has appointments available during your working hours, your employer has to allow you to take off time to get the treatment that you need.

On the other hand, if you work until 5 p.m. and need physical therapy and your provider is open until 7 p.m., your employer can tell you that you have to go after working hours. That’s not a great choice for a lot of people, especially if you have a family you want to hang out with, but one thing we’ll never do is tell you the answer you want to hear, we’ll always tell the truth.

The good news is that we do find that most employers are flexible on this issue as the big majority of them want their employees to get better and back to working without problems. Other times we encourage clients to work with their therapists on a home rehab program if possible. I myself tore my rotator cuff and went to one physical therapy appointment. I was given home exercises and only followed up with the therapist one more time after that to check my progress although I saw the orthopedic doctor five times. That doesn’t work for everyone, but worked for me and many others.

Finally, I am a big believer in life that you don’t get what you want if you don’t ask for it. If your works starts at 9 a.m. and your doctor isn’t in until 8:30 a.m., it doesn’t hurt to ask if he will come in at 8 a.m. so he can see you and give you enough time to make it to your job site. Business hours aren’t set and many doctors do actually give good customer service. If you’ll ask for it.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

6/15/12

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For injuries after September 1, 2011, Arbitrators are supposed to consider the AMA impairment guidelines in determining what a case is worth. They are just one factor to be considered and most lawyers believe that they should not reduce the value of a settlement at all as that does not appear to be the intent of the law and all old factors are still to be considered. This is really important as the AMA guidelines are a joke and would greatly reduce what a case is actually worth. A case that was worth 20% of a man under the old law could be worth ten times less under the new law if we only used the guidelines.

But as you probably know, insurance companies make money by limiting what they will pay out on a case. We saw this in Wheaton when an injured worker went before Arbitrator O’Malley to settle a torn labrum injury in his shoulder. The insurance company received an AMA rating that said he suffered a loss of 2% of the arm. Now I did not see his medical records, but I can tell you that if he had surgery, the minimum he should have gotten would be 20% loss of the arm and usually it would be more than that. But this worker did not know the AMA was just one factor and it was not the Arbitrator’s job to protect him.

So as a result this worker saved money on lawyer fees and cost himself tens of thousands of dollars. He likely thought he knew what he was doing, but got burned. And now that the settlement contract has been approved there is nothing he can do.

I tell people all of the time that they don’t need a lawyer, but if you have a serious injury, under the new Illinois work comp laws you are making a huge mistake if you try to go at it alone. The insurance companies are going for every last dollar that they can save and in some cases, like this one, they are taking tens of thousands of dollars that the injured worker should have.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

6/9/12

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I know that I will never succeed, but I encourage callers, readers and clients to not listen to friends, neighbors, cousins, etc. and what they tell you should happen in an Illinois workers’ compensation case. Usually these well meaning folks are basing their opinions off very little experience. It’s not that they are always wrong, but usually they are not right, at least not to the extent that they need to be.

I thought of this recently when I was called by a guy who had torn his biceps at work in Illinois and had been back on the job for six weeks. He wants to quit, but his friends told him that if he does, he’ll have to pay back some of his benefits and would lose his rights to a settlement. I let him know that was the craziest, falsest thing I’d ever heard. But after digging deeper, I learned that the caller worked in Illinois and lived in Iowa. So his friends were giving him advice based on their understanding of Iowa law.

Now I am not and never will be an Iowa workers’ compensation lawyer although I do know a good attorney there. So I can’t tell you if you could forfeit your settlement by quitting a job in Iowa, but I can tell you that would never happen in Illinois. Fortunately this guy was smart enough to seek out some advice and I expect that his case will soon settle and we let him know that in his case it was ok to take a new job.

Being perfectly honest, while I’m happy to give anyone a free consultation to ask questions, so will most law firms. So whether you go to me or someone else, make sure you get advice. It doesn’t cost anything, there is no commitment and it certainly will be better than what you are hearing from friends.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

6/5/12

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Sometimes an insurance company can be a lawyer’s best friend. It seems that a couple of times a week I get a call from a prospective client who was not thinking about a lawyer until they thought the insurance company

The other day a guy called me to talk about settling his case. He had a relatively straight forward carpal tunnel surgery for a small employer in the Chicago burbs. The insurance adjuster told him that he can try to get a settlement, but if he does, his employer will have to pay every penny of it. The translation was that if you go for a settlement, you are going to cost your boss tens of thousands of dollars so you can kiss your job goodbye. What a bunch of b.s.

Although some huge companies pay their own work comp expenses (think United Airlines, Jewel, City of Chicago, etc.) a smaller business and even medium sized business that has work comp insurance is like me or you having car insurance. If we get in an accident that is our fault in our car, the insurance company pays off the damages. That’s why people have insurance. Otherwise it would make no sense to have insurance at all.

I’ve heard a lot of nonsense over the years, but I’ve never heard this. These lies border on illegal and it’s really pathetic. Of course it backfired because the caller is smart and realized that if something doesn’t make sense you need to do research.

We tell our clients that the most important thing they can do in any case is be honest. If the insurance company caught you being dishonest, they would cut off all of your benefits. But unfortunately many of them have a do as I say, not as I do approach to how they treat injured workers.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

6/1/12

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A reader asks:

I hurt my back at work in 2007. At first they were talking surgery, but I ended up just having injections. I stopped going to the doctor in 2008. I started back at work light duty and then regular duty. I was told that I could get a settlement, but I never did because I was worried that there would be backlash on the job. My back has bothered me since on and off, but I just take over the counter pain meds. Fast forward to today and I’m getting fired for a b.s. reason. Is it too late to go back and get my settlement?

I talked to this nice reader and unfortunately for him it is too late to get a settlement. There are time limits for filing an Illinois workers’ compensation case. You preserve those time limits by filing a document called an application for adjustment of claim with the state of Illinois. If you don’t do that within three years or your accident date or two years from the last work comp related compensation that is paid by the employer (whichever is later), your case is barred forever.

I get why this guy waited, but he really screwed himself. My estimate of his case is that his settlement given his high wage and the amount of treatment he had would have been around $30,000.00 tax free. But that is too late and unless he can discover that a medical bill for his back injury was paid in the last two years he is out of luck forever.

It’s unfortunate, but the statute of limitations (time limits) for filing a case are very strict and for the most part there are no exceptions to them. If you wait too long, that will be that.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

5/28/12

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When people ask my opinion on what makes a good attorney, I ask them to think whether or not the attorneys they are talking to pass the smell test.  It’s true for workers’ compensation claims, but also really true for any area of law.

Of course the smell test counts on you to use your life experiences and sensibilities.  Everyone has different standards about what doesn’t seem right in an attorney, just as, I guess, many of you would have different standards about what food to eat.  So here are some things I think of when I evaluate an attorney and if they have these qualities then to me they smell and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone:

-          Are they over eager to get you to sign up with them?

-          Will they not answer any of your questions?

-          Can they not give a concrete example of a similar case they’ve handled?

-          Do they seem just a little too slick?

-          Are they doing other things while talking to you like checking e-mail, taking calls, etc.?

-          Does it seem like they are trying to b.s. you?

-          Is their hygiene awful?  I will never forget showing up at a deposition where the opposing attorney has extremely messy hair, a 1970’s type suit, brown teeth and patches of hair on his face from where he missed shaving.  Who would hire that guy?

-          Are they yelling at you when they are supposed to be talking to you?

-          Does it take days for them to call you back or respond to an e-mai?

-          And my least favorite, do they make their secretary call them Mr.?  I know one lawyer who not only makes his secretary call him Mr., but also makes her call other attorneys for him.  E.g. She’ll call and say, “Please hold, Mr. Smith (not real name) would like to speak with you.”  That happened to me once and I hung up.  As if I’m going to hold when he is calling me so his secretary can get him on the line.  Maybe that wouldn’t bother some people, but to me it screams, “I think I’m better than you and my time is more valuable than yours.”   That’s unacceptable in my book and a sign of an asshole.  Ironically, that specific attorney has blown at least two cases that I know of where he forgot to submit thousands of dollars in medical bills that his clients ended up stuck with.

Bottom line is that if the lawyer doesn’t pass the smell test, don’t hire them.  There are plenty of other attorneys out there.  You should keep looking until you find the right one for you.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

5/18/12

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A reader tells us this story:

I've had a workman's comp. case going for about 2 years. My neck was injured from another employee running in to me and knocking me down. My lawyer really did nothing with it until a couple months ago. He called saying he couldn't do much with it, but the workman's comp. insurance would pay a little more than $6000 in settlement. Now I received a letter that he had been talking to the doctor that referred me to him.?? He says he has to pay the doctor $6000 of that in bills he wasn't paid 2 years ago? I questioned him on it, and the doctor never billed workman's comp., nor my insurance for whom he is a provider. I also have never received a bill. He originally said I was not responsible for workmans comp. bills. Now it sounds like he is splitting it with this doctor. This does not sound legal or ethical. What can I do?

We’ve written before that you need to look out for attorneys that get their cases referred to them by doctors. It’s not that this couldn’t be an honest relationship, but often it involves a tit for tat, e.g. you send me your clients, I’ll send you mine.

Usually a lawyer is going to represent you once and be done with you forever. If a doc is sending lots of cases, that’s an ongoing relationship that the attorney wants to protect. In other words, there is a danger that the lawyer will look out for the doctor more than they will look out for you.

This certainly seems to be happening in the e-mail we got from the reader. The answer is that yes all bills are supposed to be paid by work comp and if they aren’t then the lawyer should take the case to trial. This doctor failed to submit his bills which is a horror sign of how he runs his practice.

My advice to this reader is to not accept the settlement without the bills being paid. If the case is worth only $6,000 then the client should get his fair share. If only the doctor and lawyer are getting paid then what’s the whole point of even bringing a case?

To be fair, this is an unusual situation, but it happens as this e-mail clearly shows. Remember, you need to look out for you and if something doesn’t seem right you need to speak up. And if your lawyer only cares about the doctor and vice versa then dump them both.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

5/14/12

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What should I do first?

If you are injured at work, there are a few things you should right away. You should get medical attention, notify your employer, and file a claim with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. Medical attention is the most important, obviously. In Illinois you are allowed to choose your doctor (there are limits, but that’s the general rule). Notifying your employer is important because there is a rule that you have to tell them within 45 days or your claim could be denied. Filing a claim (called an Application for Adjustment of Claim) is necessary if you want medical coverage and compensation for lost wages.

Can I sue my employer if my claim is denied?

No, but you can request a hearing in front of an arbitrator if your claim has been denied or if you aren’t receiving the benefits you are owed. If someone other than your employer was responsible for your injury, then you have the right to file a lawsuit against them. These are called third-party lawsuits.

What if my condition was pre-existing?

You should be entitled to benefits for a work injury even if you already had a medical condition or previous injury. You may be required to show that the work injury worsened your condition.

Do I need an attorney?

For straightforward claims on minor injuries where you expect to fully recover, you might not need an attorney. However, if your claim is denied, if your benefits are less than what they should be, or if your injury is serious and/or permanent, talking with an experienced work injury attorney can be important. Be careful when dealing with the insurance company on your own, because they might not be completely honest with you.

What is a status call?

Every three months, your case will be on the arbitrator’s schedule for a status call. At the call, you can request a trial, or present a settlement agreement. If nothing happens, the case is reset for another three months. If this goes on for too long, the arbitrator will want to know why the case isn’t progressing. They have the power to dismiss the case after three years if there is no good reason to continue.

What is arbitration?

In worker’s compensation claims, there are not judges and juries, but there are arbitrators. Their job is much like a judge’s – to help resolve disputes between injured workers and insurance companies. The process is called arbitration. There are arbitration locations throughout the state. Your case will be assigned to the location closest to where you were injured. If you were injured out of state, your case should be assigned to the location closest to where you live.

Can my employer fire me for filing a workers’ compensation claim?

No. It’s against the law for your employer to retaliate against you for filing a claim after a work injury.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

5/10/12

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So on Friday there was a crazy situation at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission in Chicago. I wasn’t there and am not one to gossip, but when you hear the same story from multiple sources and it can provide a lesson to readers I have to share. And it’s really not even a lesson, but rather just crazy and funny because if you didn’t know not to do this then there is no helping you.

Apparently some injured worker was in the courtroom of Arbitrator Zanotti who is a new Arbitrator. From what I was told, the lawyer for this worker was asking to withdraw from the case and the lack of merit that the case had was being discussed. The worker did not like it and allegedly was becoming threatening and had to be forcibly restrained by the Illinois State Police that are in the building for security. A friend of mine was in the courtroom next door and said there was a lot of screaming and banging on the walls. It’s big news because while there have been incidents over there throughout the years, they are few and far between.

I can’t imagine that anyone I’d represent or that I’d refer to a colleague to represent would do something like this. But it’s surely the best way to mess up your case if you even had one to begin with. Showing the Arbitrator that you are a tad crazy is not going to endear you to them and even if this was just a momentary loss of reason, this case is likely over.

Fortunately nobody got hurt and life as we know it was able to move on. I feel sorry for whatever claimant had to go in that room after this all happened. I don’t know Arbitrator Zanotti, but have heard he’s very competent and objective which is all you can ask for. But it would be human nature to be on the edge for whoever was in there next. Which goes to show you that when you go to trial, it’s not always just the facts that matter. Sometimes the mood of a Judge can play a huge role.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

5/6/12

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Illinois law basically says that you can file a workers’ compensation claim in Illinois if one of three things can be proven: 1. You were hurt in Illinois; or 2. Your employment is principally based out of Illinois; or 3. Your contract for hire was completed in Illinois. But where do you file your case if you were hurt in the air?

Typically these types of injuries occur to flight attendants. For them, bringing a case depends on whether or not their home terminal is Illinois or if they were hired her. We recently took on the case of an Ohio flight attendant who technically is based out of Chicago, but isn’t often here. United workers, no matter where they are, can typically bring a case in Illinois based on a provision in their union contracts. So if they get hurt flying from LA to Australia, it won’t change their ability to bring a case in Illinois.

On the other hand, a few months back I received a call from a nice guy who was flying from Texas to Detroit and hurt his knee as a passenger in mid-air. He believes that the plane was flying over southern Illinois when the accident happened and wanted to know if that was enough to bring the case in Illinois. It’s a novel idea, but I don’t believe that he’d be able to make the case here without any other connections to Illinois. Air space really belongs to no one so he couldn’t really say he was hurt in Illinois. Had he been hurt at O’Hare airport or any other place on the ground in IL, that would have been enough to make a case here, even if that was the only time in his life he had been in our state. But without that he’s got nothing.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

5/4/12

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Nobody I have ever met wants to get injured. I tell clients all the time about the guy I represented who received what I’ve been told is a record settlement for his back injury. He basically became stuck in his home because moving around was so painful and then he died of a massive heart attack. I don’t know anyone that would want to switch places with him dead or alive.

But if you do get injured, even if you are hiring an attorney, you must be invested in seeing that your case goes well. This mainly includes being honest and listening to what your doctor tells you. It also includes communicating with your attorney any developments. Beyond that though there is a great way you can help your case.

I advise many callers and clients that they should keep a journal of everything that is going on with them. For some it’s therapeutic, but from a legal standpoint you can aid your case. Hopefully you never have to go to trial, but if you do it’s a great re-fresher for you. Your injury might occur in April of 2012, but you might not be on a witness stand for years depending on the issues in the case. While a witness might struggle to recall years old events, you can look very credible and feel sure about yourself by having jotted important details down.

For example, one of the defenses to an accident is that the employee failed to notify the employer about the accident within 45 days. We’ve seen plenty of employers lie through their teeth about this issue. It becomes a he said – she said situation. If you are able to tell the Arbitrator that you are sure of the precise details because you wrote them all down right away it will make you look good and help him/her realize that you are telling the truth which of course is what this all about.

In some cases we’ve heard of these journals/timelines being admitted in to evidence as they support testimony. Either way, keeping a journal can help you and it can also help your lawyer have a road map to your case.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/28/12

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I was recently contacted by a nice guy who broke his ankle on the job. It lead to a surgery and when we talked he was in the middle of physical therapy. His job requires him to stand all day so he couldn’t return at that time. But he was very honest that he never wanted to return because he was worried about having to stand even when the doctor cleared him to do so and because his boss is a pain in the butt which caused him to not want to go back ever again. So he asked me, “Can I quit my job right now?”

My advice was to not quit. Right now he’s getting 2/3 of his wages tax free and will continue to do so until his doctor gives him a full duty release or the employer comes up with a light duty job for him. If he quits, he will stop getting paid if the employer says that there is magically now a light duty job open and he could have had it if he hadn’t quit. Many insurance companies will tell the employer to create a job when they know that will give them the green light to cut off benefits. He’d still get his medical care paid for, but would be without money.

Now if he had a good paying job lined up that would accommodate his restrictions, quitting might be ok as long as he is sure that the job will be long term and there’s no real risk of aggravating the injury on the new job. Otherwise, the time to quit is when you have a full duty release and your employer wants you back.

Either way, never quit a job after a work injury without at least getting a consultation with an experienced workers’ compensation attorney. Once you quit and lose some of your rights under the law, you typically can’t get them back.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/24/12

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This is a question that is asked of us a lot and in fact I heard it the other day. The answer is simple. There is no such thing as the "best."

What you really want to know is, who is the best work comp lawyer for you in Illinois. The answer for you is probably different than it would be for your cousin or someone that is two hours away in an Illinois town you’ve never been to. This is true because every case is unique.

So if you call us and are looking for the right law firm for your case, how do we determine which lawyer in our network is the right fit? There really is no one answer, but we consider the following:

-What type of injury do you have?

-Where do you live and which lawyers do a lot of work in that area and are have a good relationship with the Arbitrators?

-Does it seem that your case will settle or will a trial be needed?

-Is time of the essence for you? If your benefits have been cut off, you need a law firm that can act fast.

-Is there something that would make you as a client more comfortable such as having a lawyer that speaks a foreign language that you prefer to use?

-Who is your doctor and does the lawyer have a good relationship with him/her? This isn’t always a consideration, but it can be helpful with many orthopedic injuries.

Above all else, we don’t ever recommend an attorney whose primary practice focus is something other than work comp. If your attorney isn’t handling work injury cases every day of the week and keeping up with our changing laws, you are not in good hands. Beyond that, we make sure that every lawyer we recommend is willing to fight for their client and that they have great experience with your type of injury.

So there is no one thing that makes a lawyer the best. Always remember that you need to find the lawyer that is best for YOU.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/20/12

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Under Illinois workers’ compensation law, you can choose your own doctor for treatment. The insurance company can make you see one of their doctors, but you get to choose who is your primary treater. And that law is incredibly important.

I thought of this the other day when I got a call from a local guy that needed help for a hip and back injury sustained on the job. It turns out that he actually needed a Pennsylvania workers’ compensation lawyer because the injury and employment was from out there so I referred him to a good lawyer I know in Philly. That lawyer sent me an e-mail that said: “The client sounds like a great guy. He got hurt in July, went to the company hired gun for treatment who told him he was fine and just had a back strain. Even though he was in a lot of pain, he kept working as he assumed the doctor knew what he was talking about. That just made the injury get worse as did the lack of treatment. Now he’s facing back surgery which might not have been needed. Typical hard working guy who wasn’t looking for a work injury and assumed the company doc would look out for him.”

This type of story is typical in Illinois too. We love to represent honest, hard working people like this person who want nothing more than to get healthy and get back to work. He likely didn’t call an attorney right away because he was trusting that the company he worked so hard for would do right by him. No one expects that a doctor is going to say you are fine when you aren’t. To be fair, many company doctors aren’t that way, but unfortunately a lot of them are.

Whether you are getting a lawyer or not, you need to know that you can choose your own doctor. And you should go to someone independent of the company that will give you an honest opinion. As shown by this caller, failing to do so can have terrible results. This poor guy may need a back fusion and that would alter his health for the rest of his life. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

4/4/12

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A reader asks:

My bro-n-law says that his attorney, that he has for his wc case. Told him that the new wc laws say that you dont get a lump sum settlement anymore. That he will get payments spread out until he turns 75yrs old. And if he should die before he turns 75, the payments will stop. ??????????????   Please, can you explain this to us that are left scratching our heads in confusion?

This one has me scratching my head too.  New work comp laws in Illinois were put in place as of September 2011.  They don’t affect injuries from before that date at all.  There is a new law that limits wage differential benefits for accidents after that date, but that shouldn’t come in to play yet for just about any injury as it would likely be too soon to determine that someone will be a wage differential because we don’t know what their recovery will be.  That new law limits wage differential benefits to the later of when you turn 67 or five years from the date it’s ordered by an Arbitrator, whichever is later.

Sounds to me like the attorney is trying to get the client to settle a case and instead of telling them why to settle, they are making stuff up to convince the client they did the best they could.  Most attorneys don’t do this, but you hear about it every now and then.  A common one is when attorneys say that it takes years to get to trial when in reality they are just too lazy to get a case prepared.

What you should know is that if you were hurt before 9-1-11, unless you have carpal tunnel, for the most part the new work comp laws don’t impact you in any way.  And even if you were hurt after that, the laws haven’t changed that dramatically and handling a case isn’t any harder than it was before.  If your attorney is saying something that leads you to scratch your head there is probably a reason that is true. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/31/12

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Two to three times a week I get a call from someone looking for a Federal workers’ compensation attorney. We don’t handle those cases because Federal laws are completely different than Illinois laws. In fact I’ve never found an attorney in Illinois that handles those claims which are known as OWCP.

But we have been able to help some Federal workers. If you are injured while working due to the negligence of someone else, you may have a personal injury lawsuit. We don’t handle those cases, but we do know the best personal injury attorneys in Illinois and have helped many Federal workers bring lawsuits against those that harmed them. In fact, there must be something in the water as in the last four months we’ve had three postal workers get hit by cars and contact us looking for help with their Federal comp case. We couldn’t help with the comp part, but they all did get help with a personal injury claim.

So if you are a Federal worker and hurt yourself lifting a box, we unfortunately can’t help you. But if you are a Federal worker (or any worker for that matter) who is hurt while working due to the negligence of someone else, we would be happy to point you in the right direction. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/27/12

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I talk a lot about being honest on this blog. Don’t lie to your employer. Definitely don’t lie to your doctor. If you do, it will kill your case.

I had a great example of this lately. An older worker for a delivery company called me. She hurt her back lifting boxes. A “friend” convinced her that she shouldn’t report it to her boss so she didn’t. When she went to the doctor, she knew that if she told the truth, her insurance wouldn’t cover the bills. So she said she was hurt at home.

Here we are a few months later and she has a major back injury that will end her career. She is paying lots of out of pocket expenses and although she gets disability pay, it’s not very much and will end in a few months.

Had she told the truth, there would be no out of pocket expenses, she’d get 2/3 of her wages, tax free, and since she couldn’t return to work, they’d have to either find her a new job within her restrictions or keep paying her. And that could last for the rest of her life.

I estimate that she probably cost herself around $250,000.00 if not more. To her credit she admitted that she lied and knew that it was wrong. Theoretically she could still try to bring a case, but I don’t know a lawyer that would touch this with a ten foot pole. We’d have to take the case to trial and it would be easy to make her look like a liar.

To be blunt, she screwed herself. If I can give you just one piece of advice, don’t ever do what she did. It will leave you with no options. The only silver lining for this woman is that she has a spouse who works and her home is paid off. Too many others aren’t so lucky. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/21/12

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Insurance companies like to appoint “nurse case managers” to monitor their cases for them. These are trained professionals who have a few goals. 1. They tell the insurance adjuster what is going on. 2. They see what they can do to minimize costs. 3. They try to influence your medical treatment in a way that saves money.

Many of them will try to talk to the doctors. Some even try to be in the room during your medical appointments. The worst ones will tell you that they schedule all of the appointments and some have cancelled doctors’ visits that didn’t work for their schedule. Ha! As if you should be worried about anything other than your health, now you’ve got to make sure some insurance spy isn’t inconvenienced.

I should be thankful for these workers as they lead to a lot of calls from injured workers. They act with such disregard for the worker that it makes them want to call a lawyer.

The good news is that once we are on the case, we can get them to stop all of their bad acts because other than asking for copies of medical records and bills, they aren’t allowed by law to do any of the things that they do. It’s the easiest problem to solve.

But what made me write this post is getting a phone call from a nurse case manager. I get telemarketing calls all of the time from marketing companies, to doctors trying to promote their practice to people that claim they can clear up my debt (which I don’t have). But I’ve never been called out of the blue by a nurse case manager who was offering her services to the attorneys of injured workers.

Basically she offered to be a liaison between me and our clients and the doctors they are visiting. I never got around to asking what she’d charge, but did say that it sounded to me like a service for lazy lawyers. Basically she wants to do our job. I was stunned when she responded by telling me, “I think you are probably right.” At least she’s honest.

I’ve never heard of this and maybe it’s a new job that this company created. But I can’t imagine a lawyer for workers doing this and if they did, I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t pass that cost on to the client. So if you see this happening on your case, you better have a talk with your attorney and make sure the cost isn’t being passed on to you. And you better make sure that there is a valid reason for the lawyer passing on their job duties or it might be a sign of a lazy attorney. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/19/12

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People are always asking us for advice and we are glad to do it.  Here are five things we think you should know if you get hurt on the job in Illinois.

1. Report your injury to your employer ASAP.  Technically you have 45 days from the accident, but the longer you wait, the more likely your case will have problems.  Insurance companies are looking for any reason at all to deny you.  Don’t give them one.  If you get hurt on Friday, but try to tough it out and realize on Sunday that you need to see a doctor, you better tell your boss what happened Monday morning when you show up for work.
2. It’s illegal to fire someone for filing a workers’ compensation claim.  Too often people don’t pursue a case because of this.  Next thing they know they have no job and no case.  I remember one poor woman that did this and she was on social security disability at 40 because she let the injury become way worse. 
3. Nothing is more important than your health.  Case or no case, if you aren’t feeling well or are injured, get to the doctor.
4. Hopefully you never have to fire a lawyer, but if you do, it won’t cost you any more to hire a new one.  Total attorney fees can never be more than 20%.
5. The law for workers in Illinois is very strong and designed to protect you.  You just need to become educated as to what your rights are and make sure that those rights are protected.

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/11/12

 

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You probably know the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. He kept on yelling wolf when there wasn’t one and when finally a wolf did appear, nobody came to help because no one believed him.

I think of that story a lot in regard to Illinois workers’ compensation claims. There are plenty of times when you get hurt on the job, but that doesn’t mean that you should file a claim for anything beyond medical treatment. We don’t take on cases for contusions or mild sprains and it’s probably not in your best interest to do so either. I reviewed a case once where a client had filed more than 10 cases in a seven year period, none of which involved anything serious. When I reviewed the case (which we did not pursue), the caller had a serious shoulder injury. The case was being denied and even though he probably did hurt himself on the job, the caller had a fight on his hands because he had a reputation of always getting injured. That raises red flags, especially when many of the injuries are difficult to prove.

Compare that to my favorite type of caller, the hard working laborer who in 20 years has never filed a workers’ compensation claim. Sure they’ve hurt themselves, but they get through it with ice and Advil or minor medical care. The last thing they want to do is call a lawyer, but now they have a real serious injury and realize that they need help. If that case gets disputed and we have to go to a trial to win benefits, that client is going to look great on a witness stand as their lack of bringing claims makes them look credible. On the flip side, when you appear to make a career out of filing work comp cases, it makes you look bad even if you are being honest.

I often tell my children when they fall down that they have to know the difference between being hurt and being injured. Getting hurt means that it’s a temporary problem that is going to get better soon. Being injured requires real help. I don’t want my older son to cry if he scrapes his knee. On the other hand if he breaks his leg, bring on the waterfall of tears.

Same thing for clients. Just because you fell down doesn’t mean you need to file a case. And if you do file a case when you don’t really have an injury, don’t be surprised if one day when you really are injured if the insurance company and Judge look at you like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/9/12

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I recently was called by a nice woman who had never filed a workers’ compensation claim in her 20 years of working a very physically demanding job. Sure she had been hurt before, but she usually just popped a few Advil and gritted everything out. This is a woman who only took six weeks of maternity leave instead of the usual 12 because her employer said they really needed her back on the job. By all estimates she is a dream employee.

A couple of months ago, she broke her ankle in a fall at work. It was clearly a work related injury, but when she reported it, her boss asked her to lie to the ER doctors and say it happened at home so he wouldn’t have a mark against him in his job evaluations which include preventing work injuries. She almost went along with it, but thought better. After that happened, the insurance company tried to tell her that she could only see their doctor. This was another lie. They then assigned a nurse case manager who told her that by law she was allowed to sit in on all of the medical appointments. Another lie. Beyond all of this, they denied her doctor’s request for a MRI of the ankle and have delayed in paying her medical bills.

When she finally called me, she relayed that she was frustrated, but did not want to hire a lawyer because she loved her job and didn’t want to do anything that was seen as “adversarial” against them. I pointed out to her that they were clearly being adversarial against her and had basically been trying to screw her left and right with no regard to her health despite how great she had been to them over the years.

Beyond that, I made clear that hiring an Illinois workers’ compensation law firm does not mean that you are picking a fight. 95% of our clients want to go back to their job or will be going back to their job some day. We want that situation to be as comfortable as possible. As a result, unless it is absolutely necessary, we never make any contact with the employer. Workers’ comp claims are not lawsuits, they are claims for benefits. For the most part, all of our dealings are with the insurance company for the employer or their attorney.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t fight for our clients. But it does mean that we consider everything that matters to the client which often means not messing up any relationship they have with their employer.

Sometimes getting an attorney is the right thing and other times it’s not. But not hiring a lawyer because you don’t want to get in to a fight should never be a thought in your head. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/5/12

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On our blog and with our clients, we talk about honesty all of the time. Don’t try to make your case more than it is by embellishing the facts. You also don’t want to make a case less than it is.

When we say don’t make a case less than what it is, we mean don’t lie about what happened or how hurt you are. A lot of workers get told by their bosses to tell the ER doctor that they weren’t hurt on the job. Others do it because they don’t want to “rock the boat.” What you end up doing is rocking your own boat.

The first thing an insurance company or one of their defense attorneys will do on a case is look at the history you provide in your medical records. They are looking for something, anything, that can make a compensable case be legally denied. If you fell out of your truck and twisted your back, but tell the doctor that you don’t know how you hurt yourself or that you must have slept wrong or some other lie, then your case is likely over. If you are ever on a witness stand, you will be made to look like a liar even if your lie can be explained away. At the very least, you are giving the insurance company a reason to deny your case and the Arbitrator at trial a reason to find against you.

I am writing this post because I’ve talked to at least five people this year who lied to their doctors about how they got hurt. All but one of them did so because their boss told them to. Clearly the boss is looking out for themselves, not for their workers and as a result, the worker is going to get screwed.

Don’t oversell your injury and pretend that it is more than it is. It’s lying and aside from being wrong, it will hurt your case. But don’t undersell either. That’s lying too and it will also hurt your case. If you are being honest about what happened then justice should prevail. If your employer has a problem with honesty that doesn’t mean you should too. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

3/1/12

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Getting your doctor to say you can’t work is essential if you want to get compensation for lost wages while you’re out of work, but only if it’s backed by credible evidence and a solid medical report.

In a recent Illinois case, a woman suffered foot, spine and wrist injuries caused by a work-related accident. Her injuries developed into complex regional pain syndrome. Although initially she received benefits, they were later reduced. Apparently, she was taken off work by her doctor based solely on her claim that she could not work in her condition. There was no report from the doctor showing an examination or a record of any medication to address her pain. Without a medical opinion that she was unable to work, she didn’t have enough to prove that she couldn’t work.

It’s not completely clear to me who messed this case up. Maybe the injured worker simply failed to prove her case, maybe the doctor could have done more, or maybe she was lying about the extent of her injury. Either way, it shows how essential your doctor’s report is, and that simply having a doctor’s note to get out of work is not enough to get benefits approved.

The truth is, even if your doctor backs up his opinion on the extent of your injury, it can still be disputed. And if the arbitrator sides with the insurance company, your benefits can be denied despite having “good” medical evidence.

This may all feel outside of your control, but it isn’t. There certainly are things you can do to help your claim and yourself. You can find a lawyer you trust, and a doctor that you trust. Be sure to document everything and tell the truth. Credibility matters a lot, especially when a claim is disputed and goes to trial. Having a doctor who is well respected (and not known for getting paid to say what the lawyer tells him to say), is important. And honesty – from your lawyer and yourself – goes a long way. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/24/12

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There are a few different deadlines when it comes to getting compensation for a work injury. One is that you are supposed to notify your employer within 45 days. Another is that you are supposed to file a claim within two years of your injury (or two years after last payment of benefits if you had been receiving them). And as we’ve said before, getting medical treatment right away is important if you want medical coverage.

Insurance companies can use any type of delay or missed deadline to deny your claim. They won’t necessarily win, but they will certainly try. They’ll say that you waited too long and therefore they don’t have to pay you lost wages or cover your medical bills.

Waiting also can cause a problem when it comes to proving the cause of an injury. The longer you wait, the harder it is to connect it to your job and prove that the injury was, in fact, caused by your employment. It opens the door for the insurer to say that because you waited, something else in the meantime could have caused the injury. Sometimes, a claim is rightfully denied. Other times, if you fight back you can get benefits. It all depends on the type of injury, how long you waited, why you waited and in some cases what you did while you were waiting.

In a recent case in Illinois, a worker was denied benefits for a shoulder injury because he waited for eight months after the date of injury to seek medical treatment. His job required him to do a lot of reaching overhead and one day he felt a pulling sensation and pain in his shoulder. It continued to worsen over the eight months and he eventually decided to make an appointment with a doctor. After trying physical therapy for a while, his doctor recommended surgery. The insurance company tried to fight it.

In this case, the arbitrator determined that it was clear that work caused the man’s shoulder injury, despite the delay in seeking treatment, and that he should be covered. It also seemed important to the arbitrators that the worker had taken care of himself during those eight months. He testified that he self-medicated and rested his arm. He also testified that he wasn’t aware that he had the right to seek medical treatment. In other words, the reasons for his delay were reasonable. And most importantly, it was still clear that work had caused the injury.

The bottom line is that you should not delay medical treatment, but if you do, don’t let the insurance company tell you you’re out of luck. If you can still prove that work caused your injury, you should be entitled to benefits. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/18/12

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Fresh off the Illinois Work Comp Commission website: 

Arbitration limited on Feb. 17 for confirmation hearings

On Friday, February 17, arbitrators and commissioners will appear before the Senate Executive Appointments Committee in Chicago for their confirmation hearings. In Chicago, arbitrators will conduct business from 8:30 - 10:30. At 10:30, Chicago arbitrators will stop business for the day with one exception: Arbitrator Thompson-Smith's 2:00 status call will be held.

In Waukegan, Arbitrator Holland will handle pro se cases from 8:00 - 9:00 am. He will hold his status call from 9:00 - 10:00 am. At 10:00, he will leave for Chicago.

All other downstate calls are cancelled for February 17. If your case is set for trial that day, please contact the arbitrator and the other party to reschedule.

So other than routine motions, no case is getting tried on Friday because there won’t be enough time. You will unfortunately have to reschedule. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/14/12

 

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Illinois workers’ compensation laws changed last year. One of the changes that was pushed by legislators was that if you failed a drug test following a job injury, you couldn’t get work comp benefits unless you proved that you weren’t impaired when it happened. It’s a dumb law change because under the old laws, if you were high on drugs or drunk when you got hurt and that caused your injury, you would lose your benefits. So basically it was a law change that sounded good, but wasn’t needed.

All that said, some insurance companies are using this change to flat out deny benefits. We had a worker call us who broke his hand. 20 days earlier he had smoked pot and as a result he failed his drug test. Smoking pot three weeks ago had nothing to do with the injury whatsoever. But the insurance company denied his case for the simple reason that he failed the test. So now we have to go to trial and have the client testify that he hadn’t smoked for three weeks. We may have to hire a doctor to testify that smoking pot three weeks ago wouldn’t hurt you today. And while I fully expect us to win, our client is going to be without benefits for a few months until that happens. He is fortunate in that he has a little nest egg saved up, but others aren’t as lucky.

In general I could care less if anyone does drugs. As long as you don’t get behind the wheel of an automobile, what you do on your own time is your own business as far as I’m concerned. But when it comes to helping an injured worker in Illinois, my advice is that you should never do drugs. It can really screw up your case and if you have a minor injury you’ll probably never find an attorney who is willing to take the case on.

Of course when you are partying you aren’t thinking about getting hurt on the job, so I don’t expect anyone to follow my advice. But this is part of insurance companies doing their job. They make money by figuring out a way to pay you or to pay you less than they are supposed to. Any time they do that successfully it’s a huge win for them. So if you do work a job where they drug test after an accident, please realize that one fun night might really screw up your life. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/14/12

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We recently consulted with a worker who had a major back injury that resulted in surgery. He has not made a good recovery and may end up needing a lumbar fusion. Needless to say, he is not back to work and won’t be any time soon.

He’s also going through a divorce and the insurance company heard from his employer that money is tight for him. As a result, they did something very sneaky and unethical; they offered him $50,000.00 to settle his case right now.

I say that it’s sneaky and unethical because they knew he was in no position to settle his case and that if he needs a fusion in the future, that surgery alone would cost more than what they want to offer him. Sure the 50 grand would come in handy for him right now, but after that he’d be jobless with no way to pay for the medical treatment that he so desperately needs.

The caller was a very bright guy and smart enough to not even consider taking the offer. In fact, he felt it was shady so he went searching for a lawyer. But not everyone is so bright and we’ve seen many instances when workers are taken advantage of.

“What is my case worth?” is the most common question we get. It is human nature to think about that, but you should not ever consider a settlement until you are done treating for your injury with no doubt that you will be treatment free for that injury in the future. And if you have any permanent restrictions from your injury, you should not settle your case until you have a job to return to.

Many workers (and some attorneys) want the quick buck. We strongly believe that you should always think about what is best for you in the long term sense. And we promise you that if an insurance company wants to offer you money to make your case go away when you need more medical treatment, they are not thinking about what is best for you long term; they are thinking about what is best for them long term. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/12/12

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We had a recently injured worker contact us and she was very stressed.  She had hurt her back on the job and had shooting pain down her legs which is a classic sign of a herniated disc which can be a big problem.  She was told by her boss that she had to see the company doctor and she did so.  That hired gun took x-rays which were normal (they almost always are on back injuries), gave her some pills and said she was fine.

She was put in touch with the insurance company and they told her that under the new Illinois workers’ compensation laws, the insurance company could now pick her doctor and they certainly employed she did not have a choice of her own.  That is 100% false, but this woman went along with it for 6 weeks to the severe detriment of her back.

This type of thing happens all the time.  The biggest mistake you can make in your work injury case is to take legal advice from your employer or the insurance company.  They have a direct competing interest against you and it’s an unethical conflict of interest for them to tell you what to do and what your rights are under the law.

Insurance adjusters aren’t bad people, but their job and their company depends on limiting the amount that is paid out on any given claim.  As a result they have an incentive to look out for themselves, not for you.

If they are telling you what the law is, they might be telling the truth, but you are really foolish if you take everything they say as gospel.  It’s not usually as extreme as the blatant lie my caller was told.  But other times they’ll tell you that the nurse case manager they assigned to the case gets to talk to your doctor (false), come to your appointments (also false) or that they closed your file (if you’ve waited to long that can happen, but if not it can be easily get re-opened).

Sometimes looking out for yourself means getting a lawyer, other times it just means doing research or making a consultation phone call.  But if things don’t seem right or you feel bullied, don’t just trust the decision makers.  Not helping you is the un-written part of their job description. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/8/12

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Workers’ compensation attorneys work on a contingency basis, which means that they get paid if your case is successful. In a non-work injury case, this means that if you fall and suffer serious injury and get $200,000 at trial or in settlement, the attorney takes their fee out of that. If you lose, the attorney gets nothing.

In most work injury cases, the attorney’s fee comes out of the settlement. Generally, this is an amount that the insurance company pays you for a permanent injury. It also can be a lump sum you are awarded at trial.

The idea is that the attorney only gets paid if you “win.” There shouldn’t be any other fees. No consultation fee, no fee for getting your medical records, no upfront payment for expert witnesses. All of these costs exist, but they should be covered by your attorney. That’s how it works.

Another red flag is if your attorney tries to take a fee out of your benefits checks. This is money you need to live on. Even if your attorney filed the claim for you and made a few phone calls, they still shouldn’t do this.

An attorney’s fee is limited by law in Illinois to 20% in a workers’ compensation case. As with any type of case, discuss fees with your attorney at the beginning – even before you hire them. And get it in writing. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/6/12

 

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Injured workers don’t always run to their employer to report an accident. If it was a careless mistake, you might feel embarrassed, or fear that your employer will fire you for making the mistake. Maybe your employer has a reputation of treating injured employees poorly and you would rather suck it up in order to stay on their good side.

These are valid concerns. The reality is that keeping your job might be your top priority. We get that, but ignoring an injury at work worries us, because we have seen people miss their opportunity for benefits and end up out of luck when the injury worsens years later.

In Illinois, the law says that you have 45 days to notify your employer. If you miss the deadline, you’re not necessarily out of luck, but it gives your employer and the insurance company a reason to deny your claim. The point is to notify your employer as soon as possible – it can help you avoid a dispute and get your benefits started sooner.

Notifying your employer is just the first step; you also have to file a claim with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. The deadline for this is two years from the date of injury or two years from the last payment of benefits. For injuries that develop over time, such as repetitive stress injuries, the deadline is two years from when you realize you are injured and that work is the cause. This is common not only with repetitive stress injuries but exposure to toxic fumes or materials. Asbestos illnesses can show up decades after exposure. You have more than two years from the date of exposure in these instances, but there is still a time limit, so delay can hurt your case.

We’re not trying to make you paranoid. There are times when an injury really isn’t that bad, and a claim would not be beneficial. Just be aware of how you’re feeling and don’t skip that trip to the doctor if it’s warranted. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

2/4/12

 

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We got a call from someone who was about to hire another (reputable) lawyer for their work accident in Glenview. She was panicking about signing the contract because she thought her lawyer had somehow pulled a fast one with the contract he sent her. When they talked over the phone he told her 20% was the fee by state law (it is), but when she got the contract she saw something about a 50% fee.

Under Illinois law, your lawyer fees can not exceed 20%, even if you switched lawyers. The exception to that is if you were made a settlement offer before you hired the attorney. In that case the lawyer can take 50% of what they get above and beyond the offer you were given before you hired them.

For example, if you are given an offer of $15,000.00 before your hired a lawyer and the lawyer gets the offer increased to $45,000.00, they can get a fee of $15,000.00 (that is 50% of the 30k increase they got for you). We choose not to add this clause to our contracts because it almost never happens and we don’t typically consider taking that much. I think it actually serves to confuse the client more than anything.

In this case, a good lawyer didn’t do a good job of explaining themselves and almost lost a client. We told the caller to stick with them and not worry about what the contract said as there was never an offer to begin with.

If this is confusing just let us know. We are happy to talk about this or any other issue. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/27/12

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1. MYTH: Your job will be in jeopardy if you pursue workers’ compensation benefits.

Not only will your job not be affected by pursuing your right to workers’ compensation benefits, but Illinois law has put some muscle behind this concept. Under the law, you may have an additional claim against your employer if you are fired or demoted because of your workers’ compensation case. This would be called “illegal termination” and could cost the employer significant penalties. Even though in Illinois an employee can generally be fired for any reason or no reason at all, he/she cannot be fired for an illegal reason. Trying to interfere or retaliate against you because of your workers’ compensation case would be an illegal reason for termination.

2. MYTH: If your employer says you are an independent contractor, it must be true.

Employers sometimes classify workers as independent contractors to avoid workers’ compensation benefits. But you do not have to rely on what you are labeled by the company. If your job is set up so that you actually function as an employee, then regardless of what you are called you should be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. The most significant factor is whether you or your employer is really controlling how and when you work. Look at whether you are able to decide the hours, location, and methods for getting the job done, or whether your employer is making those decisions. Also, whose equipment and materials are being used? How are you paid? Other factors go into figuring out your true status. But just because your employer calls you an independent contractor, does not mean you are not really an employee for workers’ compensation purposes.

3. MYTH: A prior injury or condition prevents you from receiving benefits for a later injury or worsening of your condition.

In Illinois, you can receive workers’ compensation benefits for a work-related injury, even if you had a prior history of the same problem or a pre-existing condition that made the injury worse. Workers’ compensation is not off-limits just because you are a worker that is older, weaker, or have been injured previously. As long as your job was a factor in your current injury-- either as a cause or making your condition worse-- then you may be allowed to recover benefits. So if you work in a warehouse and had a prior back injury that was being treated, and then re-injured yourself lifting boxes, you are not cut off from benefits just because of your prior condition.

4. MYTH: Break-time injuries are not covered by workers’ compensation.

This depends on what you were doing during that break. Not all beak-time injuries are covered under Illinois workers’ compensation, but many are. If your break involves an activity that is for your own personal comfort or health, then it might still be considered part of the job. After all, if you are taking care of your necessary, personal needs such as eating, going to the bathroom, warming up or cooling off, etc., then you are also serving the needs of your employer, because you couldn’t continue your job duties otherwise. However, if you did something unusual or risky or unexpected in taking care of your personal comfort needs and you were injured, you might not be covered under workers’ compensation for those injuries.

5. MYTH: Insurance companies can force you to have surgery that was recommended.

As long as you are making a good faith decision to refuse surgery, the insurance company cannot force you to have the surgery, or penalize you for your decision not to have it. Illinois law recognizes that some people have reasonable fears and beliefs about medical procedures like surgery, and allows the worker to refuse treatment without losing benefits. Even where there is a medical opinion that there could potentially be a negative health effect of refusing the procedure, if the decision is in good faith and reasonable, based on a fear or belief about the procedure, then the decision should be respected.

6. MYTH: Switching attorneys will cost you extra fees out of your pocket.

If your attorney is not hard at work fighting for you, it may be necessary to make a switch—but it will not cost you anything extra. Workers’ compensation lawyers are paid a contingency fee, which means that they are paid a percentage of what you get as a settlement or at trial. The percentage is 20%. The fee amount is set by Illinois law, and you do not have to pay more money if you have more than one attorney. The attorneys who have been involved in your case will work out among themselves what part of the total fee they get. But in no event will it cost you any more than it would if you only had one attorney. If you can, it may be best to try to work out your issues with your lawyer to avoid having to make the switch. But sometimes the change is necessary and unavoidable, and you may take that step to protect your case without suffering a financial loss.

7. MYTH: The accident was your fault, so you cannot get workers’ compensation benefits.

Not that we recommend violating a safety rule, or doing your job badly, but generally it won’t affect your right to workers’ compensation benefits if your conduct results in an accident. It is more important in Illinois, whether you were actually doing the job you were hired to do at the time of your injury. If you were performing your job duties at the time, you should still be covered. If, though, you were involved in an activity at work that was not allowed, or not part of your job, then that is a different story. Also, you cannot purposely do something dangerous, that you know is likely to cause an injury. But where you were attempting to benefit your employer through your job duties, but you broke company rules or performed your duties badly, you should still be able to recover for your injuries.

8. MYTH: If there was no single accident, but the injury developed gradually, you cannot have a workers’ compensation claim.

Injuries that are caused by repetitive movements while doing your job are just as much a part of Illinois workers’ compensation as a single-event accident. If you have to constantly reach, bend, twist, flex, etc. to perform your job tasks, then you can develop a repetitive trauma injury that would likely be covered. One such injury is carpal tunnel syndrome, which can be caused by constant computer use. Repetitive trauma can also occur in jobs that involve repeated and regular movements with heavy tools. Though these cases may be more challenging to prove and to pinpoint the start of the injury, they should, nonetheless, be covered by workers’ compensation.

9. MYTH: Accidents that happens before or after the work day are not covered.

Generally accidents that occur on your way to or from work are not covered under workers’ compensation. But there are exceptions, such as a fall in the parking lot going into or coming out of work. If the parking lot is wet or icy, or there is some other condition that causes a fall, it may be covered. What is relevant in these situations, is what control your employer has over the parking lot. Whether or not your employer owns the lot, if you are required to park there, and your employer takes care of the lot or pays someone else to do the maintenance, you have a good argument for the accident being covered by workers’ compensation.

10. MYTH: There is nothing you can do if your benefits are not being paid, but sit and wait.

If you have medical bills that are not being paid, you do not necessarily have to wait for a trial, without having the situation corrected. Illinois law has provided a way to get a decision by an arbitrator on an expedited basis. Your lawyer may be able to file a petition which requests an immediate hearing. The Arbitrator at the hearing is able to order the bills to be paid, or can authorize treatment, if either is warranted. In addition, the insurance company can be assessed penalties if there has been an unreasonable refusal or delay in paying the bills. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/25/12

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A client had a really good question about her workers’ compensation benefits. She had been in a car accident while working, and now wanted to quit her job, but of course did not want to affect her current case.

While your case is pending, generally the best course of action, if possible, is to hold on to your job. But that’s not always possible—sometimes the reality of the job stress is not good for your overall health and well-being. So here are some things to consider.

Your medical benefits will be unchanged by your job status. Whatever medical bills you have, and bills you will have in the future should get covered completely regardless of whether you are working. This benefit reimburses you for what you need to spend to heal from your injury.

But temporary total disability (TTD) benefits could suffer by leaving your job. TTD pays you a percentage of your lost wages when your injury keeps you from working your old job duties. If you have job restrictions because of your limitations while healing, or after a surgery, then you can recover benefits based on the difference between what you can earn at the time, and what you were earning before the accident.

The problem with quitting your job if you are in this situation, is that if your employer has found you alternate work within your medical restrictions, and you do not take the job, you could compromise your TTD wage benefits. If you quit before you know whether your employer had an appropriate job alternative, then they could always say that they had a job lined up for you if you hadn’t quit. Again, your benefits could be negatively affected.

There are other factors that can impact the decision. For example, finding a job that is better, or pays better, may be a reason to quit. But overall it is not usually a good idea to quit while your case is ongoing. Your own situation is unique, though, so talking to us to go over the details of your situation before you make such a potentially costly decision is the better course. You don’t want to quit your job without weighing the risks to your workers’ compensation case because once you lose your rights it’s almost impossible to get them back. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/23/12

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If you search our site you will see a few posts where we talk about surveillance in Illinois work comp cases. If you have a serious, long term injury, don’t be surprised if a private detective is following you around.  As a lawyer, that doesn’t bother me at all because as long as my clients are honest and listen to their doctors, the video they get on you will likely amount to nothing and won’t affect your case at all.

I was thinking of this the other day when discussing a pain management doctor that many insurance companies use for independent medical examinations (IME).  He gets a lot of business because he is certainly more likely to tell the insurance company what they want to hear than what you want them to hear.   But he also gets a lot of business because he is very thorough.

The most thorough thing that he does is spy on those that visit him.  He or his staff will watch you as you are walking in to his building and will also watch you when you leave.  If you are walking normally in the parking lot, but limping and wincing in his office, his IME report will say that you are full of it and it will hurt your case.

So it all goes back to the point of being honest.  There is no reason to embellish your symptoms for a doctor or anyone else.  Aside from being bad karma, it’s just not smart.  Doctors are trained and experienced at what they do.  So are insurance companies and the lawyers that they hire (along with the lawyer you hire of course/hopefully).  Point is that you can almost never fool them because there isn’t much that they haven’t seen.  You are actually better served by not limping at all, assuming that reflects your true health, than trying to show how hurt you really are.

In fact, most IME doctors perform truth tests of some sort, they just don’t tell you that they are doing it.  Many clients are surprised when they see comments about this in the reports that the IME doctors write.  But you have to remember, they aren’t your doctor, they are the doctor for the insurance company.

It’s human nature to want people to believe you.  But trying to influence them with anything other than the truth, especially in an Illinois workers’ compensation claim, is a terrible idea that could potentially ruin your life.  So if you do just one thing on your case, please just tell it like it is. 

We are workers' compensation attorneys who 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.

1/21/12

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Every law firm is different. Some seem to never return phone calls. Others want every case screened by a paralegal. Still others are great and will get a real, experienced attorney on the line right away. So what happens when you call us?

1. You will notice that I put my direct line, 312-346-5578, all over this blog. I am the attorney and I want to talk to potential clients, current clients or others that just have questions. There is no need for a paralegal to filter my calls for me. If you call and I’m not on the phone, you will get me. If I’m on the phone, my secretary will pick up and let you know how long it will be until I’m free. If she has to take a message, you can expect a call back within 15 minutes. If you call after hours, my 24 hour answering service will take a message and page me. Unless it’s 3 a.m. (and sometimes even if it’s 3 a.m.), you can expect a lawyer will be calling you back right away.
2. Once we talk, you can expect that we will be direct, honest and blunt about your situation. I firmly believe that no one benefits from anything but honest talk. You will have a chance to explain your situation and ask any questions you want. We of course will ask questions of you and about what happened. EVERYTHING WE DISCUSS IS CONFIDENTIAL. No one who wouldn’t potentially be a part of representing you will ever learn anything you share.
3. After we learn of your situation, if you want/need an attorney, we’ll tell you who in our network is right for you. In other words, we are in Chicago. If you need a workers’ compensation lawyer in Urbana or Peoria, we could handle that case, but you’d be better served by someone down that way. Instead of us trying to handle a case where we know it’s not best for you that we be your attorney, we do the honest thing and hook you up with the right lawyer for you. These are all attorneys that we know well and have the same approach as us in terms of customer service, fighting for their clients and honesty.
4. There is never a charge to talk with us or just ask a question.

That’s it. It’s not complicated. We’ll never tell you what you want to hear, but always will tell the truth.

1/19/12

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We got that question recently from a nice carpenter who was concerned that his Champaign work injury attorney was not doing a good job.  He wanted to fire him, but was worried about having to pay a new lawyer and getting a bill from the old one.

The workers’ compensation laws in Illinois have that issue covered.  The total costs for attorneys in your case cannot exceed 20% of your settlement.  It doesn’t matter if you have one lawyer on the case or switch ten times (don’t do that).  It will not cost you any more than 20%.  You will not take a financial hit for protecting your interest by making a change in lawyers that you feel you need.

Also, the old lawyer can’t hand you a bill for his or services when you switch, because the money is not owed to be collected until your case is over.  The 20% for attorneys’ fees is a contingent fee, so it is calculated at the end based on the amount of money you receive for your case.  Where there has been more than one attorney, they will work out the fee issues among themselves or an Arbitrator will decide.

That being said, it is still recommended to try to work out your situation with your attorney and see if you can avoid having to fire him or her.  Every relationship has rocky moments, and you do not want to make a decision in haste.  On the other hand, you have a right to have an attorney that is fighting for you every step of the way.  It is your injury after all and really your life is on the line if it’s a major injury. 

You are entitled to have your attorney returning your calls, and working hard to see that your best interests are protected.  If you are going to make the decision to switch, it is better to do it earlier in the case, while it is still possible to turn things around.   You cannot necessarily go back and undo what your attorney has done.

In the carpenter’s work injury case, his concerns may be valid.  You want to be sure that you are involved with your case, and know what your attorney is doing for you.  If it is not what you had in mind, or the attorney is resistant to share information with you, it may be time to make a change.  When you are weighing the pros and cons of your decision, though, the cost of paying the attorney you want to fire is not a factor.

1/15/12

 

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If you go to an arbitration (trial) in a workers’ compensation case, it is up to the Arbitrator to write a written decision as to how the case is decided.  What really happens though is that the attorney for the worker and insurance company submit a proposed decision as to how they think the Arbitrator should decide.  Basically we as lawyers write as if we were the Arbitrator.  Sometimes an Arbitrator will just pick one and stamp it as if it was theirs, other times they write a whole new decision in their own words.

The last thing an Arbitrator tells you after the trial ends is that proposed findings are due in two weeks.  While sometimes an Arbitrator may know what they are going to say anyway, we’ve seen many cases turn on brilliant or not so brilliant proposed findings.  This is your lawyer’s chance to be a real lawyer and persuade the Arbitrator to find for you.  That’s why you hire the lawyer, right?

Well there is an e-mail making the rounds of work comp attorneys in Chicago that shows a conversation between an Arbitrator, highly respected defense attorney and a longtime lawyer for injured workers.  They had a trial and the defense attorney turned his proposed findings in by the deadline.  The worker’s attorney did not and was scolded in an e-mail by the Arbitrator for being late.  Bad mistake, but not the worst thing in the world.  He could have profusely apologized, made up some excuse and his client would not have suffered.  Instead the next day he turned in a one page cover sheet that says how the Arbitrator should decide, but did not actually write the proposed findings that explain the reason why the Arbitrator should find in his favor.  When the Arbitrator asked where the proposed findings were and was told that was it, the Arbitrator said: “I’m sorry, you don’t have more to write?  You honestly believe what you have submitted is sufficient?  This is a joke and I would be thoroughly embarrassed to submit this to an arbitrator for consideration. “

The lawyer, who has been in practice for more than 35 years and works at a big firm that gets lots of union members as clients responded that he trusted that the Arbitrator would read the depositions of the doctors and make the decision that way.  That set off the Arbitrator further, understandably so.

Now I don’t know the extent of the workers’ injury, but if it went to trial and depositions were taken, I’ll bet a nickel that it was a big one.  If true, the worker’s life is on the line so to speak and he puts that life in the hands of the attorney.  When the attorney won’t even half ass their effort, it’s stunning.  The poor worker of course has no idea what’s going on and probably never will.  And while the Arbitrator could find in favor of the worker, you can bet your bottom dollar that he’s going to hammer the lawyer and find in favor of the insurance company.

I don’t know how someone who “represents” clients this way can sleep at night.  It would eat me up.  I certainly hope that I never become so jaded or disinterested that I could let my actions literally screw up the lives of those who come to me for help.  This lawyer should retire, take a sabbatical, find a new career or do something other than not help his clients.  But he’s probably making great money half assing his way through work and probably can’t do anything else.  If he’s reading this, I plead with you to start showing some pride or walk away.  Or tell your clients that you aren’t going to fight for them.  It’s simply pathetic.

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.

 12/26/11

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Before you are going to get surgery covered by workers’ compensation insurance, you are often asked to go for an Independent Medical Examination.  This is an evaluation by a physician that the insurance company sends you to, at their expense, to get a medical opinion about the cause and/or treatment for your injury.

Even with the best of intentions by all of the physicians involved, there is still frequently a disagreement about the recommended course of treatment.  If your treating physician recommends surgery, and you want to go through the procedure, you hope for the best that IME physician will agree, but prepare for the possibility that he or she will not.

How can you position yourself the best to win the battle of the “experts” and have your surgery covered?  First, be sure that the expert you are putting out there is qualified and credible.  The insurance company is likely to hire someone who specializes in the particular area your issue involves.  If your doctor does not have much experience in this type of procedure, or is a general physician rather than a specialist, then the recommendation may be given less weight.  Credibility is also key.  The reputations of the doctors can sway the opinion one way or the other.  Honestly, a lot of lawyers and insurance companies screw this part up by sending workers to “hired guns” that are known to say whatever needs to be said, not necessarily the truth.

Second, if your physician has the experience and expertise to give the opinion for surgery, be sure that he or she can back it up.  A recent Illinois workers’ compensation case was lost largely because the treating physician’s surgery recommendation was made without the necessary specifics to support it.  There was no rationale behind the decision, other than to say that if physical therapy did not work then this surgical procedure should be tried.

The IME physician was detailed and convincing in his opinion that surgery was not necessary under the circumstances.  He gave specific medical reasons why he did not think that this was the right procedure.  He also was detailed in his discussion of the worker’s risk factors that would make the surgery much less likely to be successful.   In the end, the insurance company’s physician was far more credible and convincing and surgery was denied.

When you want to get your surgery covered, it can be a frustrating process to have to fight to have your opinion accepted.  But with a good lawyer in your corner, and the right medical evidence and support to back you up, you have a good shot at winning the battle of the medical experts, if your case comes to that.

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.

12/24/11

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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.

 12/14/11

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I don’t want to paint the picture that every insurance adjuster is the devil and they will screw you at any opportunity, but that said, there is no debating that an insurance company isn’t looking out for an injured worker, they are looking out for their bottom line.  Claims reps for insurance companies get paid in part based on how quickly they can close cases and how little they can spend per case.  The less you get, the better off they are.  That’s why they will sometimes refuse to approve a surgery without a good reason.  If they don’t spend $10,000 to fix your knee that is money in their pocket.

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.

12/10/11

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Most of the time there are consequences for violating rules at work—whether they are safety rules of the workplace, or directives on how to perform your specific job duties.  If you have an accident at work as a result of your breaking the rules, should workers’ compensation benefits be allowed for you injuries?

Answering this question involves looking more closely at the circumstances of your actions.  Sometimes your behavior, though negligent, does not hurt your right to benefits.  But there are other scenarios where the company rule you broke, also severed your chances of coverage.

Basically, there is a distinction between breaking the rules while performing your job duties, and breaking a work rule for your own personal reasons.  If you were doing what you were hired to do, but you violated company policy doing it, you shouldn’t forfeit your workers’ compensation rights. 

For example, an employee who drives to sales calls or deliveries throughout the work day should obey traffic laws and other safety rules.  He or she might at some point, be running late for an appointment, and decide to make up time by speeding.  This would not be a good choice, and clearly not within the directives of the employer.  But if the employee got into an accident for speeding or running a red light, any injuries that were sustained should still be work-related injuries for workers’ compensation purposes.

Even though this employee knowingly violated one or more safety rules, the whole time that he or she was in the car was part of a course of performing the duties of the job.  It was all about getting from one job site to another job site.  Because the employee was injured while in the process of doing the job, then there should be workers’ compensation coverage to pay the bills.

But if you get into an accident because of a personal risk you take for yourself, and not your employer, you could lose your right to benefits.  If the employee that is driving for the job got into an accident because, while driving, he or she was texting to make dinner plans for that night, then this would not likely be a case for workers’ compensation.  The texting was for purely personal benefit, and not part the job.  Since there was no relation between the action that caused the accident, and the business of the employer, then there would not likely be any coverage for the injuries.

Under either scenario, the actions were unsafe and should have been avoided.  But for the purposes of recovering under workers’ compensation, the difference between the two can be significant.  One is a prohibited way of performing the job, and one is a prohibited activity that is not related to the job.

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.

11/30/11

 

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I had a call the other day from a woman who wasn’t happy with her lawyer.  I asked how she got to him in the first place an she said, “The physical therapist that the insurance company sent me to told me to hire him.” 

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.

 

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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.

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Usually when you think of work injuries and workers’ compensation, you’re likely to picture an employee performing his or her job, and some accident or event happens.  But what about when a physical fight breaks out at work, and injuries result?  Consider this scenario:  two employees disagree over who is entitled to a sale from a customer, and words turn into punches.  Can workers’ compensation insurance cover the injuries?

Just because your work injury was caused by a coworker’s fist, does not rule out the possibility of it’s being a covered injury.  In fact quite often these injuries do come within the scope of workers’ compensation.  However there are a few important limitations.

First, as with all workers’ compensation claims, the situation must be job-related.  It is not enough that the fight broke out between two employees.  The fight itself needs to have come out of some aspect of your job.  If two workers at a health club get into a heated argument over politics, and one throws a punch and injures the other, the injuries did not come about as a result of their employment.

However if the health club employees argued over who is entitled to credit for bringing in a new member, and it got physical, then the injuries are likely to be covered.  In this situation, the issue that sparked the fight was related to the job, and so the fight could be considered a risk that is related to their employment.  It’s not that workers’ compensation laws support resolving disputes by violence.  But the reality is that work-related disagreements can escalate, and where there is an injury that follows, there may be insurance coverage.

But there is another significant consideration that limits who may receive benefits from a work-related fight.  Whoever is determined to be the aggressor in the fight cannot claim workers’ compensation benefits for his or her injuries.  Even though two workers may be fighting over a legitimate work dispute, the one who escalated the fight is not entitled to benefit from the conduct.  The reason behind this distinction, is that the aggressor’s action taking the fight to that level breaks the connection to the job.  The person’s own uncontrolled behavior becomes the cause of his or her own injuries.

Deciding which of the employees is really the aggressor in the fight is not always an easy matter.  Cases in Illinois have said that it’s not necessarily the person that starts the fight, or the person that turns the fight physical.   All the facts surrounding the fight will be looked at, including what may have provoked the violence.  Sometimes, what may at first seem like one fight, when looked at closer can really be two separate events.  One person tried to end it and walk away, and the other then pursued it further.

Though the law may say that returning a punch from a coworker does not necessarily prevent you from receiving benefits from workers’ compensation for the injuries; causing a fight likely can. 

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.

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We just began representation of a man who sustained a major injury following a chemical burn at work.  He had an attorney before he contacted us.  Any time someone calls us that is already represented, we try to learn why they want to switch and all things being equal we try to help them stay with their current firm if they can.

There are some work comp law firms in Illinois that seem to have clients that always call us.  This worker was one of them and his story was the same as others that were unhappy with this firm.

Basically his old lawyer talked down to him, yelled at him and often didn’t return phone calls or answer questions.  His thinking was, “Why should I trust someone that treats me that way?”  He’s right and I don’t blame him.

I certainly don’t get a long with everyone or even like everyone that I represent.  But my job isn’t to be friends, it’s to deliver honest and competent service in the best interest of my client.  I’ve fired clients who I found to be liars or just bad people.  But I would never put down a client or not do my job and no one I work with throughout the state would either.

Who does a lawyer think they are to call a client “stupid” or “pathetic” or any of the bad things we’ve been told some lawyers say?  It’s just awful and to quote them, stupid and pathetic.

If you aren’t happy with your law firm, you should try to work things out if you can.  But if they are just bad people then our take is that they don’t deserve to have you as a client.

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.

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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.

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Be careful of promises like “your case is probably worth six figures,” or anything similar that you hear from an attorney at the beginning of your case. If an attorney is promising you the moon at your initial meeting or consultation, beware. At that point, you are a potential client, and they want your business. If they make an argument about why they are the right attorney for you, based on their experience, past success, etc., that’s fine. But if they are promising a particular result, or guaranteeing you a win, or a big settlement, you are right to be skeptical.

No one can predict how a case will turn out, even an attorney with years of experience. And attorneys should know better. This is especially true in the early stages of a case. The value of a work injury claim is based largely on the extent of your injury and whether it’s permanent. If you hurt your back at work and are just starting to look into treatment, you have no idea what the long-term effect of that injury is going to be. What if you need surgery, or two surgeries? What if some chiropractic work fixes the problem? The range of outcomes is huge, and attorneys are not doctors.

We got a call recently from someone who was very upset about what their case ended up being worth. And we don’t blame them. Their attorney initially told them the case would be worth at least $150,000. Two years later, they get an offer for a $40,000 settlement. Now the lawyer is saying the case is not worth $150,000. The client is angry. The attorney is being honest now, but wasn’t being honest two years ago when trying to get the client in the door.

It’s a huge red flag. And it’s one that a potential client can miss because they want to believe what they’re hearing and they don’t have the legal knowledge or experience to know that it’s not an accurate estimate. The best thing you can do to avoid this is to avoid attorneys who make promises, especially about the outcome of your case or what it’s worth. No one can predict that. And if they pretend that they can, then they aren’t being honest with you.

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.

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When a union member is injured at work, they often contact their union for advice. The union may recommend hiring an attorney and might even provide the name of an attorney for them to call. In some cases, it might just be a helpful referral. In some cases, there is more going on.

We’ve been hearing more and more from injured workers who are not happy with the lawyers recommended by their union. Some say they feel forced to hire these attorneys for their work injury claims. The specific complaints we’ve been hearing is that the attorneys they are referred to blow off their cases once they’re in the door, unless they are a well connected client. They don’t feel like they’ve hired the right attorney.

Some firms are known as “union firms,” and these attorneys get a lot of business sent their way. That in itself isn’t a problem. The question: Why are the unions recommending these particular attorneys? Some are great, but some are not. One reason might be the relationships between the firms and the union heads. There are stories of these law firms taking union heads on vacations, buying them gifts like big screen TVs, etc. This is against the law, obviously, but that’s not to say it doesn’t happen.

An attorney should be recommended based on their ability to best represent a client. When it comes to a work injury, the attorney you hire should have specific experience in your type of injury, especially if it is something rare or complex. There is no way that one firm is going to be the best choice for every injury. If you have a heart attack on the job, or an RSD case, or complex back injury, you need someone with that niche experience. When unions refer members to an attorney, it should be based on the best interests of the injured worker, period.

These alleged arrangements are mutually beneficial for the law firms and the union heads. The firms get tons of business; the union heads get perks. But where are the injured workers in this equation? Shouldn’t they be the priority? We don’t promise results, but we do promise service. We believe you should be given all the information, and get a referral based on your individual needs and an attorney’s ability to meet those needs.

If your union recommends an attorney, you don’t have to hire that attorney, even if it seems like you’re getting a lot of pressure to do so. You have the right to seek out your own attorney, or at least get a second opinion.

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.

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No doubt being injured on the job and unable to work like you did before is stressful.  You’ve got medical bills to pay and a future to plan.  But approaching your workers’ compensation case like you’re nervous or anxious can be a mistake.

Frequently clients feel that they change their course if they take down the insurance company that denied their claim.  Though for you, it’s understandably personal—it’s your life that’s on the line.  But for the insurance company, it’s just business, and whether they were right or wrong to deny your claim will not make or break the company.  Rather than focusing on hurting them, we want to focus on helping you.  Bringing your case before an Arbitrator who will make an appropriate ruling is the better way to deal with the insurance company.

Because of the pressure of what’s at stake, we also see clients censor themselves when speaking to their attorneys.  Apparently there’s a concern that if they tell us everything they could be burned by it.  This is absolutely not the case.  Not only are we legally required to keep our conversations confidential and not do anything to hurt your case, but we wouldn’t want to see anyone’s situation made worse by talking with a lawyer.  We are here to get you going on the right track to healing and recovery.

So the best thing you can do is be open and honest with us so we can fully analyze your situation.   We will go through the facts of your case and the possible outcomes.  Lawyers are there to help your case progress to get you the benefits you are legally entitled to.  So there shouldn’t be any reason to be fearful and feel you need to question everything you say. 

Though no lawyer can guarantee any particular result in a case, we can promise that we will listen carefully, analyze your situation, and keep everything you say in confidence and after that we will give you a blunt, honest assessment of what you are dealing with.  

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.

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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.

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If you are injured at work, you are probably overwhelmed. How can you make sure you get benefits? Should you hire an attorney? Here are six tips to get you started.

Be honest

There are many steps and stages in an Illinois workers' compensation case, and you'll probably end up telling your story over and over again. Being honest about where and how you were injured will save you from inconsistencies that could hurt your case. Further, honesty with your attorney is absolutely necessary. If your lawyer isn't well informed, it will get in the way of their ability to represent your best interests.

Report your injury right away

As soon as you are injured at work, you should report the injury to your supervisor. Not only will notification start the benefits process, but it will satisfy the 45-day notice requirement in Illinois. If you don't notify your employer of your injury within 45 days, your benefits could be denied. The best way to report your injury to your employer is in writing.

See a doctor

Nothing is more important than your health. If you are hurt on the job, you may be concerned about getting in trouble. Or you may think your injury is too minor to seek medical attention. This should not stop you from seeing a doctor. In Illinois, 100% of your medical expenses are covered by workers' compensation insurance (so long as the treatment is reasonable and related to your work injury).

Keep a journal

A written account of your injury is a good place to start. Write down how and when you were injured, who was there, and who was notified. Keep track of your interactions with your employer and their insurance carrier regarding your benefits. Write down any changes, whether good or bad, related to your health. You never know how long your Illinois workers' compensation case will continue, so it's a good idea to have a reliable record rather than rely on memory.

Communicate with your lawyer

From the beginning, tell your lawyer the complete story. After that, keep your lawyer up to date on any changes in your case, including your health. Again, the best way to do this is write everything down. If your lawyer isn't informed, then your case could suffer. Illinois has many good work injury attorneys who will do everything they can to get you benefits, but they can't succeed unless they have all the information.

Don't be a tough guy

If you get hurt, get treatment. Your health should be your number one priority - don't wait around for your injury to worsen. Also, getting treatment right away will help establish that your injury happened at work (a fact insurance companies try and dispute). The more time that goes by between an injury and treatment, the easier it is for the insurance company to argue that the injury was caused outside of work.

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.

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If you are hurt on the job, your employer's insurance company may offer you a lump sum settlement. The insurance company is not required to do so but they may and then you must ask yourself whether you should take it or fight for more at trial. There are many factors, even above and beyond the actual amount, that go into answering that question. Before you accept a settlement from an insurance company, you should talk with an experienced attorney about the facts of your case and the best course of action for you.

 

Settlement offer amount- The amount isn't the only factor to consider in deciding whether to accept a settlement or go to trial, but it is extremely important. An experienced attorney can tell you if the amount offered is in the ballpark of fair and reasonable. Some of the things he will consider are whether the amount compensates you for the permanent nature of your injuries, whether it covers disputed medical bills or other medical costs and whether it compensates you for future lost wages, among other things. Also, you and your attorney will devise a game plan of perhaps a first negotiation for a higher amount and, if that fails, to proceed to trial.

 

Timing of receipt of settlement amount as opposed to trial - Even if there is a very good chance that you could win a higher amount at trial, settling now for a lesser amount might actually be the wiser decision for you, depending on your circumstances. Do you desperately need the money and can't wait for a trial? Has the whole ordeal been hard on your health and the stress of a trial could only make it worse?

 

Timing with respect to your health - It is extremely important to remember that you should never settle your case until you are at the healthiest you can be and don't currently need more treatment for your injury. You do not want to be in a situation where you settle only to learn that you need more treatment. You can't then go back to the insurance company. Once you settle, it's over. Illinois work injury attorneys know this standard for waiting until your treatment is complete. If it seems your attorney is not considering this but is making a decision based on what will get him paid quicker, find a new lawyer.

 

Chance of success at trial -Your attorney will consider your case and whether the disputed issues are likely to be resolved in your favor. What kind of evidence do you have? If it is solid, why not show it at trial? If it's not, is a trial too risky? Settlements are a guaranteed amount and closure to your situation. You can't appeal a settlement after you accept and receive the money. On the hand, a trial is risky - you could get a much higher amount or you could not. Your attorney should clearly explain to you his assessment of your chances at trial and a risk/reward analysis.

 

Future medical rights - As noted above, when you settle, there is no appeal. You sign a contract that has consequences your attorney should explain to you, such as the forfeit of all future medical rights for treatment related to your injury. This means that if your injury unexpectedly gets worse next year and you need major surgery, workers' compensation will not cover it. You signed a settlement and it's over. A new, different injury or accident in the future is a new unrelated matter but, as for your original injury, you won't be compensated if you need further treatment.

 

If, however, you go to trial and win, your future medical rights relating to your injury never cease. This means that if your injury unexpectedly gets worse next year or ten years later and you need major surgery, the insurance company will have to pay for it. So, you may not get a lump sum settlement but rather payment over time. Only you and your attorney know what the best option is for you.

 

Whether to settle or go to trial is not a simple decision but one that you and your experienced attorney must carefully assess to make sure you devise a strategy that best serves you.

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.

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Although every workers compensation case is different, below is a list of the typical process involved in Illinois.

Step 1: Worker is injured.

Injury can either occur instantly during a specific accident, or it can be realized over time from repetitive trauma.

Step 2: Worker notifies his or her employer.

Workers are encouraged to notify their employers as soon as possible after an injury. It is a requirement for workers to notify their employers within 45 days of when they know or reasonably should know that they were injured on the job.

Step 3: Worker receives medical treatment.

Workers are encouraged to seek medical treatment as soon as possible after an injury. The worker's employer must pay for 100% of the reasonable and related medical treatment, which includes co-payments and out of pocket expenses.

Step 4: Worker obtains a lawyer.

Retaining a lawyer can increase an injured worker's chance of receiving all of the benefits allowable under Illinois law. Although injured workers are not required to retain lawyers, it is highly recommended. Illinois workers compensation lawyers are paid based on a percentage of the benefits that they earn for their clients as opposed to an hourly rate. Thus, Illinois workers compensation lawyers only get paid if their clients get paid.

Step 5: Employer pays worker for lost time.

When workers are unable to perform their normal duties, and their employers are unable to find alternative duties within their medical restrictions, then workers are entitled to temporary total disability benefits for their time off work.

Step 6: Worker receives independent medical exams.

Usually, injured workers are required to visit an independent physician of his or her employer's choice.

Step 7: Worker's lawyer files petition for arbitration.

If a worker is not given the appropriate medical or wage benefits owed by his or her employer, then that worker's lawyer can file a petition for arbitration. When a petition for arbitration is filed, the dispute between the worker and his or her employer is resolved by an Arbitrator.

Step 8: Worker is discharged from medical care.

Eventually, doctors determine that a patient has recovered from an injury as much as he or she possibly can. When this conclusion is reached, the patient is released from medical care and has no need for further treatment.

Step 9: Worker's lawyer negotiates settlement.

Once an injured worker has finished medical treatment, an attorney can begin negotiating an appropriate settlement based on review of all of the medical treatment that was necessary for treatment of the injury.

Step 10: Either worker or employer can file an appeal.

If either party involved in arbitration is not satisfied with the result, they can file for an appeal. Appeals are first reviewed by a three panel board of Commissioners. After that, an appeal can be filed with the Circuit Court, Appellate Court, and possibly the Illinois Supreme Court.

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.

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There may be times where, even though you are in a lot of pain, it could be best just to “grin and bear it.”  When you are suffering from pain due to a work-related injury, that would not be the time.  In addition to the physical pain you are needlessly going through, you could also needlessly be hurting your chances to get the workers’ compensation benefits you may be entitled to for your injury.

The workers’ compensation system in Illinois is there to help injured workers get the medical treatment that they need, and to compensate them for their loss when they cannot work as they could before their injury.   But in order to be able to show the extent of your injuries, your medical records, including your doctors’ testimony, need to contain the most accurate information about your current condition. 

A worker in a case recently decided in Illinois, learned this lesson the hard way.  He was a warehouse worker who seriously injured his back while lifting a box, and was diagnosed with a herniated disc.  He received professional medical treatment, including prescription pain medication.   When his case was heard at the Workers’ Compensation Commission, the amount of his recovery was lowered, because the Commission determined he was exaggerating his symptoms.

This decision to downgrade his recovery was based on the fact that he claimed to be experiencing pain similar to when he was first diagnosed, yet he was not receiving any professional treatment for it like he had done previously.  He was treating his pain with over-the-counter medication and stretching exercises.  Because his home-made treatment was in such contrast to the professional, medical treatment he had received initially, the Commission concluded he was exaggerating his current level of pain.

If, in fact, this worker’s symptoms were not any better, but the only change was his not seeking proper, similar medical treatment, then it’s unfortunate that he lost out on some of the benefits he may have been entitled to, which he needed.  Just putting up with pain may sound like an admirable quality, but in a case like this it can be self-defeating. 

Proper, treating physicians are an injured workers best chance at recovery from an injury.  And they also may be the best chance at showing the true nature of your injury and the pain you are suffering.   Unfortunately some people do exaggerate their symptoms, and it is never appropriate to be anything less than truthful in your workers’ compensation case.  So when you are, in fact, suffering from significant pain from your injury, you do not want to risk being accused of not telling the truth, just because you decided to suffer through it on your own without professional care.

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.

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If your injury keeps you out of work for a while, you’re probably a likely candidate for the insurance company’s surveillance.  Frequently, in cases that involve significant payouts for time off after a work injury, the insurer will want to be sure that you’re not faking or exaggerating your injury.  So videotaped surveillance is used to see if they can capture a moment on tape showing you doing something you shouldn’t do, or shouldn’t be able to do.

We’ve heard of not-so-subtle insurance adjusters calling an injured worker and asking about odd things such as facial hair, weight, and other distinguishing characteristics.  What the adjuster is trying to say, of course, is something like, “when we’re coming out to get video on you, how can we be sure it’s you?”

Video surveillance is legal, and it’s just one of those things to be aware of, but not stress over.  As long as you’re being honest about your injury- which is so critically important anyway- it should all work out in the end, regardless of what the video shows.  But having to explain and deal with video that seems like it contradicts what your limitations are, can take extra time and complicate your situation.

So it’s better not to give them anything that they can try to use against your case.  Follow your doctor’s restrictions and limitations.  This isn’t the time to try to push yourself and see what you can do.  For example, if you’re not supposed to bend and lift after a back injury, and you tried to pull weeds in your garden, you could have problems.  In addition to possibly hurting yourself physically, you can potentially complicate your case.  The problem with the videotape, is that it doesn’t tell the whole story.  It’s not necessarily capturing the pain you’re in, or whether you needed days to recover after you overexerted.

As long as you’re being honest, we can likely make things work out.  But given the likelihood that the insurance company will be doing surveillance when you’re off work for a long time, it’s best to be cautious.  They’re looking for the piece of tape that shows you’re not telling the truth.  So if you are being truthful about your injury, there’s no reason to give them something to talk about.  Keep it simple for yourself and your case.  In the long run it’s likely the best medicine for your health recovery anyway.

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.

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 We recently received a call from a woman who is looking for an Evanston workers’ compensation attorney.  She was very nervous on the phone as she had never spoken to a lawyer before.  I get that, but sometimes it makes me feel like an animal at the zoo.  We are no different than your friends and neighbors, at least most of us aren’t.  There are certainly some attorneys who act high and mighty with callers because they have a law degree.

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.

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Not everyone needs an attorney and probably three times a week someone calls us who wants to hire us and we tell them that they don’t need us.  Usually this is someone with a minor injury or a person that hasn’t even begun treating with a doctor yet.

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.

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Common question…it goes something like this:  I live in Evanston, I was injured while working at my job in Skokie.  Can I file my workers’ compensation case at the courthouse in Skokie?  The answer to that is no.  By Illinois law, your claim would have to be filed downtown at the Thomson Center.

The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission is responsible for handling the workers’ compensation cases throughout the state of Illinois.  The main location for the Commission is in Chicago, and all the cases originate there.  The cases are then assigned to be heard at an office closest to where the injury happened.  If the injury happened outside of Illinois, then the office closest to your home will hear the case. 

There are hearing locations throughout Illinois.  For Cook County cases, your case will be heard in Chicago, even though you may have been injured at a job which is close to the courthouse in Skokie or Rolling Meadows.  Similarly, if you are hurt in DuPage County, your case will be heard in Wheaton.  And if you are hurt in Lake County, your case will be heard in Waukegan.  Some of the other hearing locations include Rockford, Peoria, and Decatur, to name a few.

Because the cases are not heard in every suburban courthouse, most lawyers that concentrate their practice representing injured workers will have their office close to the hearing locations.  If a lawyer will be handling cases for clients in Chicago every day, they would be most likely to have a downtown office.  Our firm has a network of workers’ compensation attorneys that are located throughout Illinois, and situated to be able to handle cases at the many hearing locations.  When you contact us, we figure out which lawyer is best for you and part of that analysis has to do with the amount of experience the attorney has before the Arbitrator who will hear the case if it goes to trial.

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.

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Illinois workers’ compensation laws do not just cover workers who live in Illinois or who work every day in Illinois.  Depending on other factors about your work and your injury, you may be able to bring your case in Illinois, even if you live and mostly work out-of-state.  This may be beneficial, as several Illinois workers’ compensation laws are favorable to workers.

Starting your first day on the job, you are covered under Illinois workers’ compensation law if you were injured while working in Illinois, you were hired in Illinois, or your employment was primarily located in Illinois.  What this means, is that under many different scenarios, you could have very limited contact with the state, and still be able to benefit from the Illinois workers’ compensation system.

For example, you may be a truck driver that lives in Texas, and only occasionally passes through Illinois for your job.  If you are injured in Illinois while driving your truck for work on your first time here, you are covered by Illinois workers’ compensation, even if your company is located in another state. 

Changing the facts a bit:  You are a truck driver that lives in Texas, and you were hired by an Illinois company.  Even if you never even drove through Illinois, but only were here for an interview and hired, or for a required physical and then took the job; you would still be covered under Illinois workers’ compensation.  This is true regardless of where your work injury occurred.

Illinois law protects the rights of injured workers who sometimes may seem to have minimal connections to the state.  As long as the work connection comes within the law’s requirements, you can choose to bring your case here.

Bottom line is to make sure you explore your options.  The insurance company doesn’t control what state your case can be filed in, the law does.  And if you have more than one choice, the state where you file it is up to you.

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.

 

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Accidental falls can happen while doing almost anything at work.

They can catch you by surprise and leave you with an injury requiring time and money to recover.

But exactly where and how you fall can make the difference as to whether you can recover workers’ compensation benefits to pay for your recovery from the injury.

In a recent case in Illinois, a worker who was a cement mixer injured his knee while he was getting out of his cement truck at work.  At first blush this may seem as though it would be a work-related injury:  he was at work; he was in the process of performing his job; and he was stepping out of his work vehicle and closing the door.  He was not able to receive benefits, though, because as the details of the accident came out, it showed a different story.

When the worker was first questioned about the accident, he said that he fell while stepping out of the truck, and that his left foot had slipped out from under him because of the debris on the ground.  When he was examined further, he clarified that at the point when he fell, he was already out of the truck and standing on both feet.  He had turned to close the door to the truck, and that’s when the fall actually happened.

This difference in step made the difference in his case.  While stepping out of a cement truck is likely an action that is job-specific and would allow for workers’ compensation benefits, turning to close a door does not.  Even though it was the door to his work vehicle, and even though he was in the process of doing his job, he was denied benefits.  Turning to close the door to his truck was not a risk that was any different than a risk faced by anyone in the general public, and therefore it was not a work-related injury.

Looking at potential work injuries like this one, you have to apply that kind of comparison, between the risk exposure of the worker in particular and the risk exposure that anyone would face.  This helps to isolate what makes certain actions job-specific characteristics or not.  Illinois cases have said that just because a worker wouldn’t have been in the place he was at that moment if he wasn’t performing his job, that’s not necessarily enough for it to be a work-injury. 

In the cement mixer’s case, where there was no evidence that there was anything wrong or unusual about the pavement he was standing on, the difference between whether he was taking a step down out of the truck, or he was turning while two feet were down, is pivotal for the workers’ compensation outcome.

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.

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New laws went in to effect the other day that change the way Illinois work injuries are dealt with.  Since it's only been one week for most of the changes, nobody really knows what difference they have made if any.

But according to the rumor mill, at least 11 current Arbitrators are going to lose their jobs.  This will certainly change the home court advantage for a while, at least depending on who is appointed to replace them.

It will be really interesting to see what happens, but it could be that the Democrats in Illinois are really selling out their base.  What I don't get is how they expect inexperienced Arbitrators to handle both new cases with new rules (mostly injuries on or after 9-1-11) along with the hundreds of thousands of old ones that are still pending.

Like the current Arbitrators or not, they certainly are best prepared to deal with the old rules.  Things are about to go crazy at the Commission it seems.

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.

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Earlier this year, the Illinois government decided to change the workers' compensation system.  It affects injuries that occur as of today or later.  So if you are reading this post and got hurt before September 1, 2011, you are playing by the old rules.

For cases from injuries that happened today or later, the honest answer is that no one knows exactly what is going to happen.  I personally don't think the values of cases should change other than carpal tunnel which was specifically targeted by legislators.  If you are undergoing a wage loss from a job change, the value of your case will definitely drop as you are only eligible for benefits up to age 67 or for five years, whichever is longer.

Doctors will certainly get less, but they have been making out like bandits for years under this system so we don't feel too sorry for them.

For you as a worker that gets injured, nothing important has changed as far as how you should act.  If you get hurt, you should report it to your employer.   If you go to the doctor, you need to tell them how the injury happened.  And during the claim, if you are honest things should work out fine.

Whatever you do, don't let an insurance company adjuster tell you that the system has changed to the point that you have lost rights.  You haven't and just as before, good lawyers will protect their clients as the Illinois workers' compensation laws are designed to protect workers.

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.

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There is a workers' compensation law firm in Chicago (actually a few and a couple down state) that has a terrible reputation for customer service.  They don't return phone calls, they forget what the case is about, they are rude and worst of all, they have a high turnover as lawyers come and go.

We thought of this firm because another one of their associates just left, surely to be replaced by a younger attorney who doesn't have the experience their clients needs.  More than one of their former clients has told us that in less than a year, five different lawyers handled their case!!!

It's really disgusting and the sad part is that with minimal effort this firm could dominate the market if they just treated people the right way.  But they dump on their clients which makes the clients leave and they treat the lawyers like garbage which makes the lawyers leave. 

Before you hire an attorney, whether it's one we recommend or one you find on your own, make sure to ask who will be handling the case and how long all of the different lawyers have been at the firm.  If there are bunch that have been there for less than two years then it's a red flag.  If they aren't treating the staff right, then they probably won't treat you right.

When a lawyer does leave a firm, it can really cause lots of problems as someone needs to be responsible for files that they weren't handling before.  It puts you at a disadvantage as we often see that these cases are given lower priority.

Of course there is no way to predict if your lawyer is going to leave their firm, but you should still snoop around.

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.

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Should you sign it? You don’t want to sign away important rights, but on the other hand you want to make your boss happy and keep your job.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter. You can sign, or not. Either way, you still have the right to pursue workers’ compensation benefits. It’s a right that you can’t sign away. So, if signing the form helps you keep your job, you can sign it. It’s meaningless in the end.  

There are situations where you wouldn’t be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits in the first place. If you are an independent contractor, for example, you aren’t eligible. So, signing a waiver in this situation wouldn’t mean much either.

While we’re on the subject of independent contractors, we should mention that many employers and workers misunderstand what this means (or a boss understands but is looking to get away with something). If the person you work for has control over your performance and job duties, you may be considered an employee. Think about who makes your schedule, gives you tools or equipment, tells you what tasks to perform and when, and dictating how the work gets done. The more control, the more likely that you are an employee and not an independent contractor.

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.

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If you’ve been restricted from work or limited in your work because of a job-related injury, it’s important to follow your doctor’s orders.  This is especially important if you are claiming benefits for your work injury because of your medical limitations. 

There are basically two types of workers that work beyond their restrictions:  those that are trying to do too much and not allowing their bodies to heal properly, and those that are not being truthful about their injuries and what they’re really capable of doing.

Insurance companies will frequently try to find out whether a worker claiming benefits is really telling the truth about his or her injuries.  They may set up surveillance video in order to observe and record workers in their everyday lives, to see what they are really capable of.  If they find that you’re lifting what you’ve been restricted from lifting, for example, they’re not going to want to continue paying benefits for you to not work at a job where you need to lift.

Surveillance videotapes are not necessarily something to be afraid of or concerned about.  They shouldn’t pose a problem for you, as long as you follow a few important principles:

1.  Be honest and open about your physical limitations.  Lying isn’t acceptable under any circumstance.  When it’s done to exaggerate a workers’ compensation injury, it can only end up hurting your case and getting you into trouble. 

If you tell your doctor you can’t do something physically, and you’re caught on surveillance doing something more strenuous, you lose all credibility and likely lose you case.  Then any real injury you may have will not get treated as it should.  The penalties for lying and fraud can be even more severe as well.

2.  Don’t try to take on more than you should or are allowed to do.  If your doctor places restrictions on your activity, follow those restrictions.  First, if you don’t, you could set back or permanently damage your body while it’s trying to heal.  Second, if you make your injury worse or hurt yourself trying to compensate for your limitations, then you could risk losing your benefits.

But another result of trying to do activities beyond your limitations is that you could harm your case permanently if you are seen on surveillance video.  Even where you are just trying to push through the pain and do something quickly, you could be hurting yourself both physically and financially if that moment is captured on video.

It’s much better in the long-run to just ask for help or hire someone to do physical work that needs doing, and to put off activities that you shouldn’t do until your doctor lifts the restrictions.  That one moment that the surveillance records you removing snow from your driveway when you’re not supposed to be bending or lifting, can cost you too much in the end, both for your recovery and your case.

3.  Don’t be overly afraid of the prospect of the surveillance video.  If you’re being honest, and listening to your doctor, you should be fine.  And if there is something caught on tape that the insurance company is trying to spin against you, it can be explained or rebutted. 

In a recent case in Illinois, a worker was cut off from benefits after he was recorded doing yard work.  But when the video was fully examined, it showed that it really didn’t go against anything that he was actually claiming he couldn’t do.  Looking at the video closely can show that just because you engaged in an activity that looks physical, you may have done it in a way that supports your claim for your injury.

Sometimes the video can seem to contradict what you’re claiming you can’t do, but even then you have an opportunity to explain what is really happening.  Maybe you were really in a lot of pain when you were lifting or bending, or you had to rest every time you moved and the tape doesn’t show that. 

You need to continue to live your life as best as you can after a work injury.  You can’t hide in your home just because you are worried about a surveillance video making you look bad.   Just be truthful and follow your doctor’s restrictions.

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.

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I recently declined to represent someone who asked me to be his attorney. He had a recent injury where he fell on ice at work and hurt his knee.  This was the same knee that he had surgery on four months prior.  Normally that is a case I would take.

I rejected the case because he has had 12 prior claims, all with the same Chicago workers' compensation law firm.   He has a wife that has had many workers' compensation claims and a son that has a few also.

I don't have any evidence that any of these cases aren't legitimate, although this caller didn't work in a heavy labor job so it certainly is unusual. 

But when you have a relatively young guy (mid 40's) who seems to be making a career out of being a claimant and has a wife and son that appear to be doing the same, it doesn't pass my smell test.

It's similar to my son when he does his "Boy Crying Wolf" stunt and then has a real injury.  All the faking doesn't make him look good when something legit happens.  My son is seven by the way (and the love of my life) so I can excuse his behavior.

This guy will certainly find an attorney and to be honest I hope the insurance company fights him on this one.  Guys like this, in my opinion, make the great majority of credible claims look bad.

This is also why we don't file cases for finger sprains or other meaningless injuries.  Who you represent is a reflection on you as an attorney and by extension a reflection on your other clients.  If a lawyer gets a rep for filing bogus claims, that will cause insurance adjusters and Arbitrators to really scrutinize all of their cases.

I recognize that there is no way for you as the worker to know this about your lawyer before you hire them, but if you get the feeling they are sleazy then they probably are.

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.

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A potential client recently asked about the difference between a typical civil trial and a workers’ compensation trial. The insurance company denied his benefits after finding out about a prior injury to the same body part that was injured at work, and a trial date had been set.

In a workers’ comp case, you aren’t in a lawsuit; it’s a claim against the employer’s insurance company. There are hearings and trials, but they may be different from what you’d expect.d

First of all, you won’t be heading to the courthouse. Disputes are handled by arbitrators at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, which is based in downtown Chicago and has various hearing locations throughout the state. Also, the arbitrators are the judges. They hear cases and resolve disputes. Although many of them are lawyers, it’s not a requirement in Illinois. And there are no juries in workers’ compensation trials. The arbitrator makes the final decision.

There are a few circumstances that might bring your case before the arbitrator. Most cases have periodic status hearings at the Commission. These are not trials but rather a way for the arbitrators to keep tabs on a case and move it along. Status hearings are straightforward, and your lawyer can often handle it without you needing to be there. However, if there is a dispute -- the insurer denies your claim, you believe you aren’t being paid the right amount, or medical treatment such as surgery is denied – you can request a more formal hearing or a trial. Also, an arbitrator can set a case for trial if it has gone on without resolution for too long.

At trial, you will appear with your attorney. The insurance company’s attorney, the arbitrator, a court reporter and maybe a witness or two will also be there. Both sides will present their arguments. Depending on the dispute, your attorney may have to prove that your injury was actually caused by your job, or that your job aggravated a pre-existing injury, or that your injury is worth a certain amount. The injured worker usually testifies, and possibly witnesses if there is a question about the accident or incident that caused the injury. And your doctor’s testimony (usually taken ahead of time in a deposition) will be submitted. When you testify, do your best to remain calm and answer questions clearly. Always be honest about your injury.

You do not have to prove that the injury was your employer’s fault, nor will it harm your case if the injury was your fault. It’s simply not an issue in these cases, except in a rare instance where something extreme was going on (like horse play or something completely outside of your job duties).

After trial, you have to wait. It usually takes a couple of months before you get the arbitrator’s decision. They hear the testimony and review all the medical records and then present a written decision. Although you can appeal to a panel of commissioners, the majority of the decisions stick.

The issue of whether to settle or go to trial is an important one. If you settle, you can avoid trial and the possibility of losing all benefits. If you settle, you at least get something. On the other hand, settling usually includes forgoing all future medical claims, meaning you are agreeing to a final sum of money and can’t come back later asking for more treatment if your injury worsens. If you win at trial, future medical coverage is usually left open.

Workers’ comp trials are not like civil trials. Just because you know how to do one doesn’t mean you know how to handle the other. Make sure your attorney is familiar with the procedures and customs at the Commission and knows the arbitrators there. And make sure they are willing to actually take your case to trial if necessary.

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.

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A common question we get is, "how long does it take to get a case to trial."  The answer truly varies based on the claim, but in general it's as short as one month and as long as up to six months.  Three months is certainly average if the attorney is working hard.  Overall it depends on whether or not medical records have been secured, depositions of doctors (if needed) have been taken and witnesses (if needed) have been arranged.

Every now and then we'll get this question from an injured worker who will respond with something like, "I haven't been paid for nine months and there is not trial in site."  In almost every situation that is unacceptable, especially if the evidence is in your favor.

Other times lawyers will tell their clients that it takes more than two years to get to trial (lie) or that it's really hard to get ready for trial (lie).  This is usually a sign of an attorney who doesn't want to try a case and sees the client as a number not a person.

All that said, it is now getting harder to get a case for arbitration.  Every month an arbitrator has a cycle of cases that get set on a status call.  If there 1,000 cases, lawyers might request trials on 200 of them or be forced to set a trial date due to the age of the case.  An arbitrator will have on average five days to hear these cases (10 in Chicago, but there are more cases there).

The reality is that if 200 cases get set for trial there is not enough time to hear all of them.  Fortunately cases are most often set to put some pressure on an opposing lawyer or to force discussion.  Less than 10% have any intention of taking a case to trial.

So why is it harder to get a hearing date? The answer is that Arbitrators are being forced to take furlough days which has eliminated some of their hearing dates.  This month for example, if you were hoping for a Wheaton workers compensation hearing on June 10th you were out of luck because our very fine Arbitrator George Andros was forced to take that day off.  He's very hard working and it's not his fault that he's being asked to take time off.  Same goes for all the other Arbitrators.

So there is one less day to get your case heard.   But even with that, an organized attorney should be able to get you a hearing.  And if you are not being paid benefits, the lawyer can file a 19b petition which would put your case at the front of the line.  As long as your lawyer is truly ready.

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.

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A caller in a panic recently asked me if her current attorney had screwed up her case.  Fortunately for her I doubt he had.

Long story short is that she was sitting on a chair with wheels when it collapsed causing her to fall and hurt her back.  Since it happened at work on a chair with wheels and she wasn't goofing off, that alone should be enough to win the case.  The fact that the chair collapsed is just a bonus.

She is upset because her case has been denied, but not for factual reasons as to how the accident occurred, but instead for medical reasons; the insurance company is saying she isn't as injured as badly as her doctor says.

If there was a dispute as to the accident, it probably woudn't have mattered that there were no photos.  Typically your own words, if not opposed by someone else, are enough to win a case.  We will usually tell clients that it's a good idea to take photos when relevant, but it's not often the reason a case is won or lost.

In this case the case depends on medical opinion, not how the accident occurred.  The photos might help, but it's not likely.

We are anal so we probably would have had photos taken and used them at trial.  The lawyer in this case didn't ask for it and I can't say that they are doing a bad job.

For your own purposes, if you can document everything that has happened in a journal it might help your memory if you do ever go to trial.  Photos are good too, but most of these things aren't as important as good medical records which means that your doctor has documented your complaints properly and you have given a consistent and honest statement about your injury.

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.

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A reader looking for a Glenview workers compensation attorney asks:

I have a question about workers compensation and missing work for
physical therapy.     I fell at work and developed a knee injuty.   My job set up worker's compensation insurance and all medical bills and physical therapy was paid for.

However, I had difficulty scheduling early and late appointments with
the physical therapist, so there were 4 occasions where I arrived at
work a half hour late after physical therapy.   My question is, can my
employer dock my vacation or emergency time for this?  

We get this question or something similar to it all of the time.  The answer typically depends on whether or not you can do physical therapy or go to your doctor at times other than during work hours. 

Years ago I had to do physical therapy for a leg injury.  I was living in Lincoln Park and there was a place open until 8 p.m. at night right by where I lived.  I would have preferred to get PT done during the day and not have to deal with this after work, but the reality was that I had an option.

If you are an injured worker, the question is can you see a medical provider outside of work hours or not.  If you can't then you shouldn't be punished for being late or missing work.  On the other hand, if you are going during work hours as a matter of convenience, then you are just out of luck.

Hopefully that's clear, if not let us know.  Either way, just make sure to communicate these things with your employer.

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.

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In case you didn't hear, the Illinois legislature re-wrote the Illinois workers' compensation laws the other day.

The biggest question we've been getting is, "How will this effect my case?"  The answer is that it most likely won't at all because changes that workers should care about only apply to injuries as of September 1, 2011.

That said, there are some important things to know:

One major change is how you choose your doctors after you’ve been injured in a work-related accident. Previously, you were able to consult two physicians of your choosing, as well as physicians to whom they referred you. The new law establishes a physicians’ preferred provider network for workers’ compensation cases. If your employer is utilizing the network, then your choice of two doctors has to be in-network. There are some exceptions, but for the most part full choice of physicians is no longer part of receiving benefits for workers’ compensation claims in Illinois.

 

The new laws also reduce the amounts of benefits workers can receive in several different areas. One significant reduction concerns carpal tunnel injuries. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a repetitive stress injury that many workers have to face. Benefits are based on a partial loss of the use of the hand. These benefits are now capped at 15% loss, over a shorter period of time. In very significant cases, the percentage of the loss can be up to 30%. But in an event, carpal tunnel injuries now carry less compensation than they did before.

 

Another reduction in benefits for workers is for lost wages that are the result of a work accident. Previously you could be compensated over your lifetime for the “wage differential”—the reduced amount you are able to earn at work. Under the new law, the wage differential benefits end the later of your 67^th birthday or 5 years after the claim.

 

There will also be differences after the new law, when assessing the nature of a permanent work injury. No longer will the subjective testimony of the injured worker be weighed in the process. Instead, specific objective measures will be looked at to determine extent of the permanent partial disability.

 

Workers will face a new hurdle when a work accident involves alcohol use. Workers will not receive benefits for these injuries unless they can prove that the injury was not caused by the alcohol, and that they were not so intoxicated that it couldn’t be considered a work incident any longer.

 

Along with the extra hurdles and limits on benefits that workers will have to endure under the new workers’ compensation laws, medical providers will also be taking cut according to the new medical fee schedule. Among other changes, the new payment structures amount to a 30% reduction in fees.

 

While the new workers’ compensation laws were called “reforms” by many, unfortunately to workers’ filing claims many of the changes will hardly feel like a positive transformation of the system. It remains more critical than ever to be sure to have a lawyer working for you that knows how to get for you all the benefits you are entitled to under the system. Feel free to contact us (click the contact link on the top of this page) and well will be happy to discuss this with you further.  But again, don't worry about a thing if you have a case that started before this legislation goes in to effect.

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.

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If you have anything more than a minor injury, handling a case on your own is a terrible idea.  This is especially true if your case is disputed in any way.  A close 2nd in the bad idea department is shown by a call I just had.

A woman called me for her friend who had torn his rotator cuff on the job in Glenview.  I'll talk to anyone for free, any time, about any issue and was happy to talk to her.  During the conversation I learned that the case was being disputed over a pre-existing condition and there were other issues such as unpaid wages and a failure to accommodate restrictions.

The caller wasn't asking me normal questions though.  She seem more inclined to tell her friend how to handle it himself.  I explained what a bad idea was as taking a case to trial is not something you learn on the fly.  She finally admitted that she was an attorney herself and was hoping to handle the case for her friend.  Problem is that despite all of her experience, she had never actually handled a case before involving a work injury.

It got worse in that she asked my thoughts on sending a nasty letter to the employer.  That would be a terrible idea because her friend wants to go back to work someday with this employer and either way, it's the insurance company that controls the case.  She hadn't thought of that and almost blew everything for her friend.

We'd like to think that if you come to us for representation, you will get someone on your side that knows what they are doing.  There are also a bunch of other really good law workers' compensation law firms in Illinois not affiliated with us in any way.  But if your attorney doesn't have a track record to point to, it means they are basically practicing on your case.  Even if the attorney is a friend, you should never accept that and quite honestly, a good friend would never do that to you.

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.

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The powers that be are trying to "reform" the Illinois workers' compensation system by gutting many of the rights that injured Illinois workers have.  There have been various proposals out there and some of these alleged reforms include denying you the right to see a doctor of your own choice and drastically cutting what your case is worth. 

This is all happening even though filed claims in Illinois are down by approximately 40% from a few years ago. 

That said, it's important that if you are hurt that you immediately file a case.  By that I mean actually filing a claim formally at the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission by completing an application for adjustment of claim.

The reason I suggest this is that there are rumors out there that some of the changes being proposed will be effective immediately and could apply to cases that have not yet been filed even if your case has been accepted.  The biggest rumor applies to wage differential benefits where there is a proposal to end benefits at age 67 regardless if you were planning on working longer than that time.

We have relationships with great work comp attorneys everywhere in Illinois so if you need to get a case filed or just have any questions, call me directly at 312-346-5578.

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.

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One of the harsh realities of getting hurt, is that it’s going to cost you money.  Whether it’s medical bills to recover from your injury, or lost wages at work during the recovery time, your wallet may feel the pain.  But the workers’ compensation system in Illinois is designed to help you recover both your health and your money if you were injured on the job.

What it is:

Illinois workers are entitled to compensation for medical bills and lost wages, according to the workers’ compensation system.  Most work-related injuries are covered, whether they happened from a one-time accident, or over the course of many hours on the job. 

In most injury cases, if you want to recover damages, you would file a lawsuit, where you would have to prove that your injury was someone else’s fault.  In workers’ compensation cases, you file a workers’ compensation claim instead of a lawsuit.  Your claim is for your medical bills and lost wages, which you should be able to recover regardless of whether someone else was responsible for your injury.

In exchange for the relative ease receiving benefits under the workers’ compensation system, you usually give up the right to file a lawsuit against your employer for any part they may have played in your injury.

How you get started:

There are deadlines for getting your claim started that you want to be sure not to miss.  One deadline involves notifying your employer, which must be done within 45 days of your injury.  The second deadlines, is the statute of limitations time period.  Your claim must be filed with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission within three years of the date of your injury.  The Commission oversees and hears the cases of injured workers.

Some of these dates for notice and filing can actually be more complicated to calculate than they may at first seem.  For example, if you have a back injury that developed over a course of many months of lifting boxes, your injury doesn’t have one clear date.  You have to look at the time at which you would notice that you had an injury that was related to your work.

What you can expect to get:

Most workers’ compensation benefits fall into three main categories.  (1) medical benefits:  All of your medical bills that are reasonable and related to your recovery, including your out-of-pocket expenses, should be covered.  (2) temporary total disability benefits:  While you are recovering from your injury, you may receive payment for your lost wages.  The system allows for payment of 2/3 of your average weekly wage.  If you are able to work, but you’re under medical restrictions that your employer can’t accommodate, you can be compensated for this loss.  (3) permanent partial disability:  Your doctor may make a determination that additional medical treatment will not help you recover any further, and your injury is permanent.  If this is the case and you have to take a job that pays less, then you may be able to be compensated for the wage difference. 

Illinois injured workers are fortunate to be able to choose which doctor they go to for evaluation and treatment of their injuries.  This is not the case in all states.   The insurance company does, though, have the right to have your injury examined by a different doctor for an Independent Medical Exam.

How a lawyer works:

Though a workers’ compensation claim is different than a typical lawsuit, it is still highly recommended that you have an attorney handle your case.  The insurance companies are experienced at workers’ compensation matters and it is to your benefit to have an attorney with experience working to get you all the compensation you should get.

Also, workers’ compensation attorneys handle your case on a contingency fee basis, meaning you don’t have to pay an hourly fee for the work.  Generally, the lawyer gets 20% of the benefits you recover; and only if you recover benefits.

Our lawyers are highly experienced in Illinois workers’ compensation matters, and are able to help relieve the stress for you in helping you to recover your losses for your work injury.  Please contact us if you have a work injury or have any questions about workers’ compensation.

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.

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Sometimes you fall down, and you’re not sure what happened—you just fell, and that’s all you know.  But if you have a fall like that at work and you want to recover Illinois workers’ compensation benefits for your injury, then it’s a good idea to get the facts that are available to explain why you fell.

To be a work injury for workers’ compensation benefits, your injury needs to arise out of your employment.  In the case of a seemingly-random fall, this means that there has to be something about the circumstances of the fall that caused or contributed to your fall and your injury.  You want to be able to answer the question:  what condition or hazard existed when I fell that would not have existed outside of work, or would not have existed for the general public?

A recent Illinois case confirmed the need to have the facts if you want to prove your case.  A school social worker fell on the stairs at school during a passing period.  He was not able to be compensated under workers’ compensation, because he had not shown that the fall happened because of anything specific to his employment. 

There were several suggestions of possible causes, some that would have been work-related and compensable.  But because these were all just suggestions, it was determined that it was too speculative to reach any conclusion.  Work-related theories for the fall were just as plausible as non-work-related causes.  The worker had not met his obligation and lost his case.

We can learn from some of the mistakes of his case.  The weather the day of his fall was snowy, and there was the possibility that the staircase was wet.  But he wasn’t sure, and there was no physical evidence of that.  If he had taken a picture of the stairs that showed them being wet, or found someone there that day who remembered that they were wet, that could have helped.

Also, he apparently told the staff at the hospital that he had just missed a step, though he didn’t remember telling that to anyone.  Perhaps in that difficult time when he was in pain, he speculated about the cause of his fall, which didn’t help him in the end.  If you have information about your injury it’s important to tell the truth about it.  But an aimless speculation is not likely to help, and can often hurt you later.

The worker may have fallen because he slipped on a wet stair, or been distracted by students in the hall, or tripped on something loose.  Likely these reasons would have entitled him to benefits.  But he could have just as likely fallen because he simply missed a step and tripped, and for this reason, without any other proof, he couldn’t win his case.  Gathering evidence to help explain the reason for your fall can make all the difference.

 

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.

 

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