A caller to my office had a unique case. She had hurt her shoulder a while ago while working for a municipality in Illinois. The medical bills have been accepted and paid. Compensation was provided for all the time off work. The case has been ready to settle for almost a year and her lawyer can’t get a settlement offer.
She’s rightfully pissed off that this has taken so long as she wants to move on with her life and knows that she had a big injury that’s worth a lot of money and it’s money she can use.
Her lawyer hasn’t done anything other than write a couple of letters and maybe make a phone call. She wanted to know if this was normal.
The answer is the lazy lawyer isn’t normal, but the lack of responsiveness from the municipality is.
Local Governments don’t work like businesses with insurance companies that pay their bills. Most of them pay their own cases so they don’t like to give settlements. If you want a settlement against a municipality, you often have to get the case ready for trial.
That doesn’t mean that you are going to trial, it means you have to get ready for trial and be willing to do so. Only then will you force their hand and get them to make a settlement offer. If they don’t then you go to trial, win the case and get awarded money by the Arbitrator.
But whatever you do, you can’t just wait and hope they will make an offer. Way more often than not it just doesn’t happen.
This all comes down to how experienced your lawyer is. They can handle work comp cases, but if they don’t have a track record against municipalities you may end waiting to long to get the settlement you deserve.
When you work for a local Government, you have to be aggressive if you are hurt at work because otherwise it’s just a waiting game. Contact us if you’d like a free consultation on how to get the best result in your case.
