I was reading an article about an actress who was injured on a set. She had complaints about how the director treated her and was mad at the production company because “they didn’t help me get workers’ compensation benefits.”
In a moral world, your employer would always do right by you. The reality is that we aren’t in a moral world. Their job isn’t to look out for you. They are typically going to look out for their own best interests and that is legal.
Now they are supposed to post information about what to do if you are injured on a job including who their insurance carrier is. They are also supposed to fill out an accident report if you get hurt at work. The reality is that thousands of employers violate these requirements and nothing happens to them. And it would be ideal if they called the insurance company for you and advocated for you. It would also be great if they helped you get medical care and I don’t mean the company clinic, but an actual good doctor. But those things also rarely happen.
The truth is that it’s up to you to look out for you when you get hurt on the job in Illinois. Quite honestly, it’s the number one reason to get a lawyer. It gives you as close to a guarantee as possible that you won’t get taken advantage of or be punished because you didn’t know certain things like a nurse case manager isn’t allowed to talk to your doctor.
Otherwise, it’s up to you to report an accident. It’s up to you to call their insurance company (or have the lawyer do it for you if you hire one). It’s up to you to know not to give a recorded statement to the insurance adjuster so your words don’t get twisted (also a great reason to have an attorney do the talking for you). It’s on you to seek out medical care with a doctor who will look out for you and is qualified to treat your type of injury.
Hoping that your employer will do right by you is a terrible idea. And it’s especially bad if you work for a large company where they clearly only care about the bottom line or a small one where your employer tries to get you to lie about how you were hurt and “promises” to take care of everything for you.
Illinois workers’ compensation benefits are a right that every employee in the state of Illinois has. They are there to protect you and they really can. But you still have to prove a case. If your plan to prove it is to rely on your boss or company, you are greatly reducing the chances of a good result in the case.
This doesn’t mean you are alone. Our job is to take care of you from the moment you hire a law firm and it’s what any good attorney wants to do. We’d be happy to do that for you and it’s a sign that you are looking out for your own best interests.
