It’s interesting to me how similar cases seem to run in waves.  I got two calls within 30 minutes of each other that dealt with people who have back injuries from sitting at their desk all day for work.  Both of them worked in high volume call centers.

It’s a bedrock of Illinois workers’ compensation law that to win benefits you have to show that you were at some sort of increased risk as compared to the general public when you got hurt.  For example, if you slip on water on the floor at work and hurt your knee, that’s a case.  Most people don’t have to walk on a wet floor.  On the other hand if you are just walking at work and your knee gives out for no obvious reason, that wouldn’t be a case.  You have to show that something about your job contributed to your injury other than the fact you were at work.

Does that make sense?  I hope so.  Call or e-mail if it doesn’t.

When it comes to sitting, that is something most people do throughout the day.  It happens when you are driving, eating, watching TV, reading in a chair, surfing the web and a bunch of other times throughout the day.  It might be that the majority of your sitting is at work, but that is not enough typically to win a case for a back injury.

To win you have to show that there’s something wrong with the chair (not just that it’s uncomfortable) such as it not having a backing, or that it’s broken or that it wobbles in a way that could cause an injury.  The most common way to win is when a chair collapses because that’s clearly not something that happens to the general public every day.  Another way is when you are forced to sit without the ability to stand when needed and have a chair that causes you to contort your body in a certain way that puts pressure on the spine.

We of course don’t make money if we don’t take on and win a case, but we always tell the truth.  The truth is that injuries from sitting are generally hard to win or prove.  But every case is different so before you give up we’d like to talk to you (for free) to learn what’s unique about your work environment.  It could be that you think your chair causes your problem, but it’s really from doing a lot of lifting. It could be that it’s your chair. It could be nothing.

Just because these cases are hard doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be looked at.  Fill out our form to the right or call us at any time.