Are Illinois Work Comp Arbitrators On The Side Of Insurance Companies?

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Tips if Injured

We are experienced Illinois workers’ compensation attorneys who will talk to you for free and in confidence about your case. Every year we help over 1,000 injured workers with all sorts of questions and injuries.

We get so many great questions from Illinois workers. A lot of those questions come from a place of fear or misconception. Maybe your cousin is telling you about their case or a know it all neighbor is putting ideas into your head. The best advice I can give you is to not listen to non-lawyers.

An example of this came from a recent caller who was questioning if it was even worth it to start a case at all. He had a clearly compensable case for a back injury after falling ten feet off a ladder. But the insurance company sent him to a shady IME doctor who said his injury wasn’t work related (nonsense!!) and that he was fine to go back to work without restrictions. That conflicted with his doctor who said he needed surgery.

It’s the type of case we have been able to help with hundreds of times even though it will require some work. But he was really hesitant on going forward, almost already defeated mentally. That was because a friend of his told him that when it comes to Illinois workers’ comp, the Arbitrators who decide these cases are all in the pocket of the insurance companies.

If that was true, that would be awful. But it’s not even remotely close to true. There are 43 Arbitrators employed by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission who handle cases throughout the state of Illinois. They are appointed by a worker friendly Democratic Governor. Some of them are very worker friendly, some are somewhat conservative. Most of them are middle of the road.

But all of them follow the law and the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act is for the most part worker friendly. That is especially true in cases like this one where the facts are on your side. In fact, most cases that go to trial result in victories for the worker. The insurance company wins when the facts are on their side. That happens when the worker isn’t credible or is caught lying or their medical history doesn’t support their claim.

I’ve been an attorney since 1997 and never once have I worried about who the Arbitrator is over what happened that caused an injury or what your doctor says. Many of the Arbitrators are former attorneys for injured workers. They haven’t changed their mindset suddenly. Beyond that, being an Arbitrator is a great job. None of them want to lose it because they become controversial for terrible rulings.

And even if somehow you get ruled against, there is a three person appellate panel that would overturn any decisions that don’t make sense.

I believe that insurance companies have heavy influence in some other states, but it’s just not happening in Illinois. There is a lot to be concerned about, but this is not one of those things. I promise you it’s a non-issue. If you have strong facts and are credible, you should win. And that’s true no matter who is ultimately deciding your case if it goes to trial.

Repetitive Trauma Injuries And Failed Drug Tests

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Injuries

Under Illinois workers’ compensation law, if you are injured on the job (or really any other time for most employees) your employer can drug test you. If you fail that drug test, it creates a “rebuttable presumption” that you were intoxicated when you got hurt. The fancy legal phrase rebuttable presumption means that you still have a right to prove you weren’t intoxicated. In other words, just because you smoked pot on Saturday and it’s in your system, that has nothing to do with you getting hurt three days later at work.

When you do fail a drug test, the insurance company will deny your case because they have been given legal cover to do so. So you have to hire an attorney who will present evidence, which is usually your testimony, that you weren’t high when you got hurt. They typically have no way to refute that and you usually win your case.

There are some injuries where we can usually get a positive result much quicker. That’s when it comes to repetitive trauma injuries. A repetitive trauma is an injury that occurs from doing the same or similar activities over and over. Across a period of time, your body starts to break down. Eventually the pain becomes too much and you seek medical treatment. Common examples are typing causing carpal tunnel syndrome or lifting causing injuries to your back or shoulders. We also see a lot of foot injuries from walking on uneven ground and/or in steel toed boots.

Whatever the injury, the reality is that it’s happening over a period of time. So unless you were permanently high over that time, it would be incredibly difficult for an insurance company to show that a failed drug test had anything to do with your injury.

In fact, a common response as to why people test positive for marijuana, aside from it being legal, is that they used it to manage their pain from the work injury.

But no matter why you tested positive, it’s absurd to claim it impacted a repetitive trauma injury in a way that should result in your claim getting denied or delayed in any manner. So we push back very hard on these denials and in some cases you could file for penalties and fees over the unreasonable delay of benefits.

The bottom line is don’t panic if this happens to you. Under Illinois law this is a solvable problem and one that we’d be happy to help fix. Call us any time at 312-346-5578 to talk with an experienced attorney for free.

Illinois Work Comp – Is Knee Bursitis A Case?

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Injuries

If you are reading this, a popup box has hopefully offered you the chance to chat with a lawyer. During most hours, that chat is actually manned by an experienced Illinois workers compensation attorney. When we are sleeping or otherwise occupied, it’s run by an answering service which will get your questions to us and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

I’ve really enjoyed this chat feature because many people are more comfortable with it as a first reach out to an attorney. And for others, they do it during their work when they can’t be talking on the phone. We get so many great questions.

A recent one was from a cook in Chicago. He simply started the chat by asking:

Does knee bursitis qualify for workers’ comp in Illinois?

I like people who are direct. That’s how I am. The answer to his question, like many questions we get, is it depends on the facts of your unique situation.

When someone asks me if their injury is a work comp case, the first thing I want to know is how they injured themselves. In a case like this, I have worked in restaurants and know what cooks have to, but I didn’t want to assume anything and wanted to hear (or in this case, read) what he had to say.

He confirmed my assumption that over 20 years he’s not just cooking. He’s bending down around 50 times a day to get items, he’s lifting a lot of heavy items and walking and he’s banged his knee a ton on counters.

Based on that, it seems clear to me that if he has a knee issue, his job duties have contributed to it. And if that’s the case, it’s a work comp case. This is true even if he’s heavy or a runner or anything else. If your job plays a role, it should be a case.

Now he still needs an orthopedic doctor to agree with my assessment. And it’s important not to just say to your doctor something like, “I’m a cook with a bad knee, do you think it’s related to my job?” Instead you’d want to give a detailed description of all of your job duties that impact your knee. How often you bend? How often you carry items and walk with them. What is the weight range of those items? How often have you hit your knee? What else could have contributed to it?

And this is the process no matter what your job is or what your injury is.

So I do think he has a case and we connected him to a great Chicago work injury lawyer who has represented a lot of restaurant workers. I don’t think the insurance company will just roll over, but I do think when push comes to shove he wins the case.

Illinois TTD and PPD Rates For 2025

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Benefits

It’s time for an Illinois workers’ compensation benefit post that I write every year. It has to do with the rates you get paid for time off work and for settlements. Call us for free or start an online chat if you have any questions about this.

Every six months, the State of Illinois publishes data on the average weekly wages of employees working in the state. As you can imagine, with inflation and minimum wage increases, these rates go up every time. As a result, a workers’ compensation case today is worth more money that the exact same case would be if it happened a year ago. And next year a case will be worth more than it is now.

From this data, both maximum and minimum rates are set for TTD, PPD and other benefits provided to injured workers. The state average weekly wage is set effective as of January 15th and will be recalculated effective July 15th. In other words, if you are reading this after July 15, 2025 the (TTD and permanent disability) rates are higher.

The current state average weekly wage is $1,452.68. This is $29.24 higher than it was in January of 2024. This new rate is used to calculate TTD (temporary total disability benefits) payments. This is the pay you receive for the time you are off work which is 2/3 of your average weekly wage. It’s subject to a maximum which is 133 and 1/3 percent of the state average wage.

As a result, the new maximum TTD rate is $1,936.86. This is the most you could receive, tax free, per week if you are off due to a job injury. Workers making $151,075.08 a year will be subject to this maximum. This rate is more than $200 more per week than what you’d get in 2022.

There is also a minimum rate that is probably more important. That amount is $400 per week and goes up significantly if you have any dependents like a spouse or child.

PPD or permanent partial disability is the rate used to calculate your settlement. It’s 60% of your average weekly wage. It too is also subject to a maximum rate. Unlike TTD, this rate changes once a year on July 1 and is in effect for the following year. The current maximum PPD rate is $1,045.92. So if you sustained a back injury that had you disabled to 20% loss of use which is 100 weeks of benefits, your settlement would be over $104,000 if you were at the max rate.

This PPD amount is almost $200 more than it was in 2021. Like I said earlier, cases are worth more and more every year.

If there is a death on the job or you are permanently disabled from working due to a job accident (PTD), the maximum weekly benefits are the same as TTD which is $1,936.86 a week or $100,716.72 a year. If there’s a death on the job or a catastrophic injury to a younger worker, those cases can be worth in the very high six figures or even low seven figures. The minimum rate for these most serious of work accidents is $726.34 a week.

These rates are constantly changing. The key point to know is your rate is dependent on your weekly wage AND your accident date. If you have a repetitive trauma injury, your accident date is usually the day you first get medical care, the date you first notice the problem or the date you are properly diagnosed.

Please reach out with any questions and check back for rate updates.

What Is The Average Illinois Work Comp Settlement?

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Benefits

A reader of our blog contacted us with the most common question we get. What is my case worth? But the way they asked it was a bit different. They asked us the following:

What is the average workers compensation settlement in Illinois for someone who had back surgery and missed six months of work?

It’s a great question. It’s also one that’s impossible to answer without a lot more information.

To know what their case would be worth, we’d have to take into consideration the following:

  • What do their medical records say?
  • How much money were they making at the time of their injury?
  • How old are they?
  • Do they have any permanent restrictions?
  • Do they have a prior history of back problems?
  • Are there any potential defenses to this case that would affect negotiations?
  • Do they have another job?
  • Do they have any unique goals such as retiring, moving out of state, etc?
  • What subjective pain complaints do you have?

The average settlement would require us to know all of the other cases where someone had back surgery and missed time from work. We can tell you what that was for people we have helped, but even then it wouldn’t be relevant to your case. That’s because every case is different.

There are more relevant factors in determining what a case is worth, but there’s one big one that was in play here. That is how are you doing now that you are back on the job? Are you able to work? In this case, the injured worker has trouble bending down and may need another surgery. So in other words, it’s way too soon to determine what their case could be worth.

We know that unless there is a good defense to the case it will likely be worth a lot, but if they can’t get back to work and suffer a wage loss or are permanently disabled, that could increase the case value by hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, if they can work, the case would still have significant value, but not as much.

My best advice is to remember that your case is unique to you. Don’t worry about what happened on someone else’s case. We as attorneys use prior settlements to ballpark what a case might be worth, but ultimately the factors I listed play the biggest role.

All that said, if you’d like to discuss what your case might be worth or anything else about your claim, please contact us any time at 312-346-5578. We have a state wide network of great lawyers and cover all of Illinois.

American Airlines Workers’ Compensation Claims

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Tips if Injured

We have been helping injured workers since 1997. Please call us at 888-705-1766 to speak with an attorney for free.

We have had the pleasure of helping hundreds of American Airlines employees. In our years in practice we’ve worked with pilots, flight attendants, gate agents and ramp agents among others.

These workers have sustained just about every injury imaginable. There have been numerous back injuries from lifting bags. A lot of turbulence accidents. Burns from hot drinks. Attacks by customers. Slip and falls, etc.

Flight attendants and pilots based also often get hurt off the plane. Maybe they take a shuttle to a hotel on a layover and there’s an accident. Maybe they slip on a wet floor in their hotel. They could even just be working out and hurt their arm or back. Because they are considered traveling employees, these “off the clock” injuries are covered. A traveling employee is never really off the clock until they are back at home.

American is a self insured company for workers’ compensation. That means they pay the claims out of their revenue instead of relying on an insurance company to do so. They do, however, hire Sedgwick to handle their workers comp claims. Sedgwick is what’s known as a third party administrator or TPA.

A TPA keeps the lucrative business they have by limiting payouts on cases. In other words, Sedgwick or any other TPA is going to make money by limiting what you get on your case. As a result, it’s not uncommon for cases to be denied without good reason. It’s also a usual tactic for them to try to cut off your benefits through IME’s with hired gun doctors, surveillance, nurse case managers or recorded statements.

Because they are working hard to cut off or deny your benefits, even when they seem to be doing things correctly, it’s important to have an attorney in your corner who knows how to deal with them. It shouldn’t work this way, but TPA’s behave differently when a reputable attorney is on the case. A good work comp lawyer will protect you and push back against any bad behavior.

And the reality is that these are the type of jobs where if you don’t get the treatment your doctor says you need, it can cause a minor injury to become major and prevent you from ever returning to work. Pilots and flight attendants especially can’t work with any significant physical restriction.

Note that we can help workers injured in Illinois, based out of Illinois or who were originally hired in Illinois. If you meet that criteria it doesn’t matter where the accident took place. In fact we’ve helped airline employees from almost every state in the US.

If you were injured on the job working for American Airlines and want a free, confidential consultation about your case, please contact us any time.

Work Comp When You Go Back To Work And It’s Too Painful

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Benefits

When you get injured on the job and can’t go back to work, you get temporary total disability benefits (TTD). This is pay designed to help you get by financially while you recover. The goal is to allow you to focus on your health, get the treatment you need and eventually get back to work.

With some injuries, you and your doctor know for sure that you’ll be able to get back to work no problem. For example, if you break your foot and can’t work a factory job because you can’t stand, if your doctor releases you once the fracture has healed and you’ve shown you can walk without pain, it’s likely that you’ll return to work without any problems.

Other injuries aren’t as straight forward. If you have a back injury and work a job with a lot of heavy lifting, sometimes the test to see if you can safely return to work is to just give it a try. That often happens when you’ve done physical therapy and/or had steroid injections and are either feeling pretty good or the doctor believes you should be ok to try it.

When you get released to go back to the job, you might have restrictions such as no lifting over 20 pounds or having to take a break for ten minutes every hour. That’s an indication you are not in physically as good condition as you were before your injury. When that happens, it’s not unusual for the injured workers we talk to and help to feel nervous about going back to work.

In fact, many people tell us that there’s no way they can go back to work. That often stems from them knowing that there isn’t a real way to do there job with restrictions or because they just don’t feel physically up to it yet. Most people give it a go and do what they can because if your doctor releases you and you don’t try to go back to work, there will be no more TTD. Most people can’t afford to do that.

So what happens if you do try to go back to work with restrictions or without and it’s physically too painful to do the work. By that I mean your back locks up, your leg gives out, you have significant shooting pains, etc.?

If that happens, you should do a couple of things right away:

  1. Stop working. Take a break, take a breath. See how you feel in 15 minutes.
  2. Assuming you don’t feel better and don’t physically feel you can try again, tell your boss or some supervisor what happened, e.g. “I was lifting the engine with Steve and I had the worst pain in my back that shot down my leg. It’s throbbing and really hurts.”
  3. Immediately call your doctor. Try to get in with them ASAP. If it’s going to be a delay, go to an ER.

If you do sincerely try to work and can’t, it then comes down to will your doctor take you off work again. If so, you’ll get more TTD and more medical care. That said, if you can’t get into your doctor’s office for a month, you might go without benefits for a month.

Because of this, when you do get released to try and work, we highly recommend that you schedule a check-in appointment within two to three weeks of your return to work date. That time frame makes sense because while hopefully you can return to work without problem, it’s common for the body to break down again after doing a strenuous week long shift. It also makes sense because sometimes your boss will honor your restrictions for a bit, but then pressure you to do more.

The bottom line is don’t stress. The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act can protect you in these situations as can a good lawyer. If you have any questions about this and want to talk to an attorney in your area, call us any time at 312-346-5578 for a free, confidential consultation.

Illinois Work Injuries Due To Understaffing

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Injuries

We are in a weird time. Unemployment at the end of 2024 was near an all time low. At the same time there are so many companies that are having trouble hiring and keeping good workers. A ton of places are simply understaffed. This is causing a lot of problems including a rise in work related injuries.

Some companies don’t have enough workers because they can’t find people. Others are trying to save money by making one person do the job of 2-3 people. We see this in every industry, but it’s by far the worst in healthcare.

Nurses, CNA’s, RN’s and others end up having to lift patients without help. This leads to back, shoulder and leg injuries. They get less breaks which can cause repetitive stress injuries over a period of time. This can lead to carpal tunnel, hernias, rotator cuff tears, herniated discs and more problems.

And even when there seem to be enough workers, lack of supervision or training due to staffing issues can have some downstream effect of causing workers to get hurt. This is true in not just healthcare, but factories and restaurants often too. When you are doing jobs you aren’t trained for, mistakes can happen and injuries occur. You can be as careful as possible, but if you aren’t sure how a machine works it increases your chance of injury.

An increase in pressure by your boss to get more work done with less people can also cause injuries. This tends to lead to people trying to work too fast to get everything done since they have much more on their plate.

The good news is that if you get hurt, the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act protects you. You will get compensated for all of your time off of work. 100% of your medical bills will be paid. When you are all better we should be able to get you a settlement. If it’s a bigger injury, that settlement could be $100,000 or more.

The bad news is that the work comp system in Illinois can’t punish your employer for an injury that happens due to understaffing. Illinois work comp is a no fault law. That means you can’t sue for negligence or get more because your employer made a bad decision. It works both ways. They can’t deny your claim if you were at fault and made an error on a machine because you don’t know how it works. If you are doing job activities that benefit your employer, you should get work comp benefits. Those benefits can be significant.

What you can do is file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor or other organizations like OSHA which is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They might come in and inspect your work place and see if improvements need to be made for safety reasons. In some industries like nursing, you can contact the State of Illinois if laws on staffing aren’t being followed. These are also issues a labor law attorney might be able to help with.

I do fear that these issues are going to get worse in the coming years, not better. We can protect you if these problems arise and would love to help you. If you’d like a free, confidential consultation, please call us any time at 312-346-5320. We help with work related injuries everywhere in Illinois.

No, Your Boss Doesn’t Own Every Doctor In Central Illinois

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Tips if Injured

One of the best things we do for people who have Illinois workers’ compensation claims is talk them off the ledge. A big injury can be scary. Missing time from work can be scary. A lot of people can be in your ear or make you worry about things you shouldn’t. Beyond that, a lot of people just have general misconceptions. There’s one in particular that we see a lot in central Illinois because a lot of people work in small towns where everyone knows everyone (southern Illinois too and occasionally northern IL).

This is what an injured worker told me recently:

I don’t know how I’m going to win this case. My boss is connected. He owns every doctor around here. He hangs with all of them and all the Judges at his country club. He’s so rich and everyone knows him.

There are some things they said that are certainly true. The boss is surely wealthy. Most people likely know who e is. He’s a country club member at a place where a lot of doctors, Judges and others hang out.

What isn’t true is that his status can change the result of your work comp case. These are administrative claims, not lawsuits. That means that you don’t have to convince a jury of 12 people who know him anything. That’s because there won’t be a jury. There will be an Arbitrator and it’s highly likely that Arbitrator doesn’t know your boss. That’s because most Arbitrators don’t live in the county where the claims are being hear. This is especially true downstate in central and southern IL where one county will host hearings for as many as ten other counties.

So the boss being a big deal isn’t an issue. And if we can prove that they are friends with the Arbitrator, we can ask the Arbitrator to recuse themselves (withdraw) from the case so a neutral Judge can take over. Being an Arbitrator is a rather cushy job and the ones we come across are ethical and follow the rules. They aren’t going to risk their career to help a friend, especially when Illinois work comp law is straight forward. It’s just not happening.

And if you are worried that they are friends with your doctor, my suggestion is travel to a bigger city. In those places the doctors are generally better and there is less likely to be a conflict of interest. So head to Springfield, Decatur, Peoria, Champaign or even close to Saint Louis if need be.

The reality is that your boss won’t have much influence on your case at all, except whether or not to take you back with any restrictions. We deal directly with the insurance companies. Any good Illinois work comp attorney will make sure that the law if followed. So if the facts are on your side and a good doctor is in your corner, you should prevail.

When I brought this issue up to a great central Illinois workers comp lawyer we work with on cases, he did say one fear is true. He said that many of the central Illinois doctors are beholden to the insurance companies and don’t like to go against them. It’s an important reason to get an attorney who knows who the good doctors are and to make sure that you aren’t saying or doing things that can hurt your case.

If you have any questions and want a free consultation with an experienced attorney, call us at 888-705-1766.

Illinois Work Comp Law And FMLA

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Benefits

We are experienced Illinois workers’ compensation lawyers. If you would like a free consultation, please call us any time at 888-705-1766 to speak with a lawyer.

Just about every week of the year I get a call from somebody who was injured on the job, but isn’t looking for a work comp attorney. They have one already, but need help with the Family Medical Leave Act or FMLA. Basically they are hoping we can refer the to an attorney who works on those cases on behalf of injured workers.

In almost every case we tell them the same thing. If you like your work comp lawyer, they should recommend a lawyer for you. They don’t have to handle FMLA cases, but if they are doing work injury claims every day, these issues come up so much that they should know someone good to suggest you to.

On the other hand, if you don’t like your work comp attorney, we’d be willing to discuss taking that case over. If we did, we’d then refer you to a great labor lawyer who handles FMLA claims. But we won’t do one without the other.

There are a couple of reasons for this policy. First off, we don’t believe we should do the work of your lawyer. If they care about you and are experienced, suggesting a law firm that helps should not be a problem. Too many law firms blow off their clients and say something like, “You only hired me for the work comp part.” That may be true, but in our opinion, the attorney has an obligation to help in any way they can, especially when the issue is related to the underlying work injury case. They don’t have to represent you beyond work comp, but they shouldn’t blow you off either. When they do it’s a red flag to me and a sign that they aren’t the right lawyer for you.

The second reason we don’t do this is we believe it’s important that the work comp lawyer and FMLA lawyer have a good working relationship. I say that because the issues in each case overlap and it’s beneficial for the attorneys to share information with each other. While that’s possible if they don’t know each other, it’s more probable when they are used to emailing and texting each other. If they don’t know each other, it can cause delays or misinformation that could hurt one or both of your cases.

And honestly, if your work comp lawyer won’t go to bat for you at a time when you are missing so much work that FMLA becomes an issues, what are they going to do if the case has to go to trial or you need approval to get a surgery? I just don’t believe they will fight as hard for you as they should.

The good news is that these issues usually come up toward the beginning of a case. So you’ll know pretty quickly if your attorney is in your corner or not. And if they aren’t it’s not usually hard to switch and find someone who will really advocate for you.

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