In my 27 years of being an Illinois attorney, I feel at times like I’ve heard it all. But then people come at me with questions I’ve never heard before or thought to discuss and it’s actually exciting in a way.
A great example of that is a caller who recently called me about his lower back injury. It’s a pretty straight forward case in that it happened on the job, was reported right away and he got medical care right away. An issue has come up with his possible surgery. When asking if we would help him, he said something I hadn’t ever heard before. He asked me, “I know DuPage County is really conservative. Does that make you not want to get involved in my case since it will be harder than if it was in Cook County?”
Before we discuss work comp law in Illinois, let’s discuss DuPage vs. Cook County. It’s a well known fact that if you are bringing a medical malpractice lawsuit, Cook is a more favorable place than DuPage. That’s based on years of data and me talking to the top medical malpractice lawyers in the Chicago area. I’ve heard someone with a good case in DuPage tell me the case would be worth $5-10 million more if the case was in Cook. That’s because generally speaking, jurors in DuPage are more conservative which leads to lower jury verdict amounts. It also makes the cases tougher to win.
This is of course a stereotype, but stereotypes are often true. But what does any of this have to do with winning an Illinois work comp case in Wheaton?
Honest answer is nothing. Illinois workers’ compensation claims don’t have jury trials. They have Arbitrators who are the sole decision makers. Those Arbitrators rotate, so sometimes you’ll have a conservative one, sometimes you’ll have a liberal one and other times you’ll have one that is just known as fair. And to be honest, that’s most of them.
The law is the law and I think almost every case works out the same no matter who the Arbitrator is. Yes there are some that are much more worker or employer friendly than others. Yes there are some where they will likely award the worker a little bit more or a little bit less.
But there is nothing about the case being in DuPage vs. Cook or Geneva vs. Rockford or any other city that changes what is likely going to happen. It’s literally irrelevant to us and we have never thought to not get involved in a case because of the political leanings of the area in where the accident happened.
So this was a good and interesting question, but also one where the worker was over thinking things and not understanding how the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission truly works. I don’t blame him as it’s his life and he’s trying to ask good questions in order to look out for himself. But just as we aren’t afraid to take on a big company, we aren’t afraid of taking a case anywhere in Illinois. It’s really a non issue.
