Illinois Work Comp When Your Company Is Closing

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Benefits
Red and white sign in store window that says business closing

As happens a lot when there is a rough economy, and even without that, a lot of Illinois companies are going out of business. Some do it because they aren’t making money anymore. Others do it to move jobs out of state or overseas. Some get bought and closed down in a consolidation.

A machine operator called us the other day after hurting her shoulder on the job. There’s no dispute that she got hurt at work. She does a lot of heavy lifting and felt a pop while carrying a piece of sheet metal. It was witnessed by her boss. She went to the doctor right away. And she’s never had problems before or any medical care for her arms.

Her biggest concern is that her factory is slated to shut down at the end of the summer. She’s likely going to have surgery and be off for many months. She wanted to know what happens to her case and what to do when there’s no job to return to.

The good news is she doesn’t get punished because her company is closing. Your benefits are covered because your employer has insurance. That means 100% of her medical bills will continue to get paid, even after the company closes. She will also continue to get paid for her time off work. This continues as long as she has work related restrictions from the injury.

So even if the plant closes in August, if she has any restrictions, she should continue to get paid TTD benefits until her doctor releases her to work. And if when she’s released she has permanent restrictions, they’d have to pay her while she looks for a job and offer job placement assistance if needed.

Beyond that, if the only jobs available due to her restrictions pay less, the old company would have to make up 2/3 the difference and it could make the case worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars. In our experience, insurance companies will also pay top dollar settlements because since the company is closing, they are no longer a client and they have a desire to put that part of business to bed.

As a result while the plant closing is stressful and could negatively impact you, if you have a workers compensation case going in Illinois, it actually makes the case stronger in most instances. In no way should the plant closing hurt your case. Often it helps your case as witnesses become unavailable so the case is your word vs nobody. As long as you are honest and credible you should prevail.

So the bottom line is don’t stress, at least not about your work injury claim. We can protect you on that and make sure your benefits are maximized. If you’d like a free consultation, please reach out any time at 312-346-5578. We help everywhere in Illinois.

Didn’t File For Work Comp Because Didn’t Know What It Was

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Do I Have a Case?

Under Illinois law, your employer is supposed to post notices of your rights under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act and make it obvious what to do if you get hurt while working. The reality is that doesn’t happen.

If you are a construction worker, you might not have an office you go to to see this posting. If you work in a big warehouse or factory, you might simply not see it or go to the break room where it’s posted. Some employers just blatantly ignore the law.

As a result, we’ve seen a trend of workers getting hurt on the job, but not realizing that work comp benefits are a thing. Shamefully, their employers don’t tell them about their rights either.

Two recent calls to my office show what typically happens. In case one, a woman did a very heavy duty job. In fact she was the only woman who worked with 30 other men. She injured her back due the heavy lifting and was told by her doctor she had a pinched nerve. Her boss told her she could file for short term disability. That ran out. Fortunately six months after she got hurt, a friend mentioned that she should look into getting a work comp lawyer. We explained what her rights are and set the case in motion from there.

In the second case, a guy had worked a similarly heavy duty job for ten years. He hurt his elbow and shoulder and told his employer. They fired him the next day despite this being his first reported work injury ever. He’s been going to his own doctor and community clinics. He overheard someone at the clinic talking about workers comp which was the first he ever heard of it after four months of being out of work. That led him to call us.

While every case is different, you don’t get punished because you didn’t know what work comp was. By that I mean you don’t lose your rights to bring a case just because you didn’t do it right away. There are still time limits for filing a case (three years from the injury date in most cases) and for reporting the injury to the employer (within 45 days of when you know you have a work related injury), but as long as you don’t miss those time limits, you should still be eligible.

The bad news is that both of these workers missed out on getting the quality care that would have come with getting work comp right away. It makes it harder to get a good orthopedic doctor. It means they have to financially struggle while they can’t work. It likely lengthens their recovery time.

The bottom line is that if you found out after the injury that Illinois workers comp laws exist, all is not lost. We can still likely help you and are happy to offer a free consultation to discuss your claim. Call us any time at 312-346-5578 for a free consult covering all of Illinois.

Suprascapular Nerve Entrapment And Illinois Work Comp

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Injuries

We are experienced lawyers who help people with Illinois work injuries and other injury claims. To speak with a lawyer for free, call us at 312-346-5578.

Suprascapular nerve entrapment is a painful condition that affects the shoulder, caused by the suprascapular nerve getting pinched. This can lead to discomfort and weakness in the shoulder area. Although it isn’t very common, it can happen from some work activities, especially those that require lifting the arms overhead frequently.

Several factors can lead to this nerve getting pinched, particularly in areas near bony structures where the nerve passes through. Sometimes, ganglion cysts related to the shoulder joint can contribute to this pressure. In other people, issues like a large rotator cuff tear may be the cause behind suprascapular neuropathy.

Job duties which involve a lot of overhead movements, can trigger this nerve issue, but it’s not the only cause. Direct impacts to the arm, like falling from a ladder, or repetitive motions can also lead to nerve entrapment.

The main symptoms include a burning and aching pain at the back and side of the shoulder. The pain can start suddenly or build up gradually. It can also spread down the arms. People with this condition often notice weakness in their shoulders when trying to lift things. Over time, muscle wasting in the affected areas may occur.

If you think you might have suprascapular neuropathy, the first step is to see a doctor and get some imaging tests to closely examine the shoulder area. In addition to looking at the standard images, doctors will also look specifically at the suprascapular notch. You also want to make sure your notify your employer ASAP.

Sometimes, an MRI of the shoulder is needed to check for swelling in the muscles. Ultrasound may also be important for this diagnosis, as it gives clear and detailed information. In addition, electrodiagnostic studies are beneficial for assessing suprascapular neuropathy. An EMG test can show signs of nerve damage, like sharp waves and unusual muscle signals.

There are a number of treatment options for suprascapular nerve entrapment. If your condition isn’t causing too much pain or it isn’t limiting your activities, conservative measures like physical therapy may be enough. The goal of physical therapy is to alleviate the symptoms and stop the condition from getting worse.

If conservative treatments don’t work, surgery may be the next step. The surgical approach aims to relieve pressure on the nerve by widening the suprascapular notch, depending on where the compression is happening.

In addition to regular surgery, arthroscopic surgery may be a treatment option. This procedure involves inserting a tiny camera through a small incision to access the shoulder joint. Many patients report significant improvements in pain and mobility after the surgery.

Besides therapy and surgery, nerve blocks can also provide relief for suprascapular neuropathy. This method involves injecting anesthetic near the suprascapular nerve to numb it, helping to reduce the shoulder pain associated with the condition.

If you are suffering from suprascapular nerve entrapment as a result of your job activities or a traumatic incident that occurred at work, you may be entitled to workers compensation. As this is a major injury, often these cases are worth a significant amount of money. That is on top of having all of your medical bills paid for and being compensated for time off of work.

The medicine behind this injury is complex. You want to make sure your attorney is experienced and understands this type of shoulder problem. We have a state wide network of attorneys who can help. Call us any time at 312-346-5578 for a free consultation.

My Hearing Is Monday And My Lawyer Is Missing

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Tips if Injured

Stockholm Syndrome is when captive or abused people start to feel positive feelings toward the one doing them harm. There’s a version of that which plays out every day with Illinois workers’ compensation lawyers.

Some terrible Illinois work comp attorneys treat their clients like garbage. Most people would look at that situation and say to themselves they are going to get a new lawyer. Some people unfortunately take the abuse even as it gets worse and worse.

A woman who called me recently was freaking out about her work comp case and attorney. He hadn’t called her back for two weeks and she thought there was a hearing coming up in a few days. She went on to tell me that when she did talk to him he was rude and condescending and often yelled at her or called her dumb.

Her biggest concern was what was going to happen at the hearing. I of course don’t know because I’m not in touch with the opposing attorney and don’t know if her lawyer is at all ready. It certainly doesn’t seem ready for trial as her lawyer isn’t preparing her. She wanted to know if she should show up or not.

That was another question I couldn’t answer although I could say it’s unlikely she was needed or that the case was going forward. Her case was a serious shoulder injury that was denied due to a medical record from five years prior. When I asked why she doesn’t just switch firms and get a stronger more caring attorney in her corner, she was worried about hurting his feelings.

What !!!!!??!!?!!

You have to be the biggest advocate for yourself in your case. At the bare minimum you should call around and get a second opinion as if to things happening with your case are normal. I tell people all of the time to stick with their current attorneys. But in this case her lawyer is clearly a pile of hot garbage.

I had never heard of him, but looked him up and discovered that he’s a one man shop. My guess is that he’s overwhelmed with cases because he has no help. If he’s on trial for example, he won’t have time to pay attention to his other clients. And he won’t have a partner or associate who can step in.

You shouldn’t be punished because your lawyer is overwhelmed. You shouldn’t take abuse. And you should look out for your life without worry of how it will affect some attorney who is awful to you.

I wish this was an isolated incident, but I have similar calls 15-20 times a year. The good news is that people who do switch to a better firm before it’s too late usually end up thrilled with how their case went.

Illinois Work Comp And Dangerous Activities

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Do I Have a Case?

I talk to multiple injured Illinois workers every day for free. A lot of them are understandably stressed. Getting hurt at work can be a life changing event if the injury is serious or if the insurance company or your job is treating you like garbage.

One recent caller was more stressed than most and he wasn’t even hurt from the job. He’s got a good lineman job that he’s done for a long time. It sounds like he’s pretty good at his job as he’s been with the same company for a while and won a bunch of awards.

He has a new boss who sounds like a total asshole. There’s a warehouse next to the area where he works where a lot of heavy materials are stored. It’s not ventilated. When the boss is in a bad mood or mad at someone, he’ll have them and others go to this warehouse and move around a lot of heavy materials. Nobody has been trained on it, there isn’t safety equipment and it’s dangerous work.

This guy is super stressed. He told me the day after he does this work, which lasts hours, his body feels like it’s been hit by a truck. He also said that workers in this position don’t get their breaks. He wanted to know how we could help.

I told him the truth which is right now a work comp lawyer can’t do anything. We can’t bring a case due to worry about getting hurt. We can’t bring a case for him feeling worn down after doing this work unless he goes to a doctor and the doctor diagnoses an injury related to the job.

What he can do is file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor over the breaks and with OSHA (hopefully it still exists by the time you read this) which is the Federal agency in charge of making sure workplaces are safe.

If he does get injured and gets medical care, that’s when we can step in. At that point we can address safety issues and do things to protect him. So we told him that hopefully he stays healthy, but if he or anyone else there gets legitimately injured to get back in touch with us.

And this is the reality of Illinois workers comp law. You can’t bring a case based on something that could have happened. You bring a claim based on what actually does happen.

I once had a caller looking for help because a scaffold collapsed and had they not jumped out of the way they likely would have been killed. They could have brought a case for PTSD if they sustained a psychological injury and got treatment for that. They didn’t, but were insistent that they should have a case because they almost died. Unfortunately that’s not how Illinois law works.

And while telling someone we can’t help yet sucks and often feels grim, one thing you will always get from us is straight, direct answers. We’ll never tell you what the law should be, just what it is.

How Does Illinois Workers Compensation Work?

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Benefits

We are experienced Illinois work injury attorneys who will do whatever we can to help you. Call us at 312-346-5578 for help anywhere in Illinois via our state wide network of attorneys.

I am always looking to write about topics that I think injured workers would benefit from knowing. I also try to determine what injured workers want to know, especially if they are new to the process. So I thought it would be beneficial to write a post on how Illinois workers compensation works. This isn’t everything, but a nice overview.

First thing to know applies to even before an accident. All employees are covered from the moment they are hired. It doesn’t matter if you are part time or on probation or at a small company. You are eligible for Illinois work comp benefits. And it’s a felony for your employer to not have work comp insurance.

So if you are hurt on the job, what happens next? There’s no particular order, but here are things you should know:

  1. You have to notify your employer of a work accident within 45 days of it happening. If your boss witnesses a forklift run over your foot, they are on notice. If you have carpal tunnel from repetitive activity, you should let them know as soon as you have reason to believe it’s work related. The best way to give notice is in writing. An email can prove when you sent it.
  2. If it’s more than superficial pain, you should get to a doctor ASAP. When you see them, let them know how you hurt yourself. For example: I was at work, I lifted a box that weighed around 50 pounds and I felt a pop in my back. One of the biggest mistakes workers make is waiting too long to get medical care. If you are hurt in March, but don’t see a doctor until June, it will be hard to prove your need for medical care is related to a work injury.
  3. Do not worry about not having health insurance. If your medical treatment is for a work related injury, 100% of your medical care is covered. No co pays. Nothing out of pocket.
  4. If your doctor says you can’t work due to your injury, you are entitled to 2/3 of your average weekly wages, tax free, until you are able to work again. This is called temporary total disability or TTD. So if you make $1500 a week before tax, you’d get $1,000, tax free, from work comp. This happens also if you have restrictions that your employer can’t accommodate. So if you are a nurse with a 20 pound lifting restriction and can’t do your job, you will get TTD until your restrictions go away or they have a job for you within your limits.

After that, what happens next depends on the facts of your case.

You will likely get a call from an insurance adjuster. We highly recommend that you don’t speak with them. They often will try to have you give a recorded statement. That is an insurance company tactic where they may try to twist your words and deny your case.

The insurance company has a right to your medical records as relates to this injury, but they don’t have a right to all of your medical records. Don’t sign a general medical release form. You can sign a limited one. So if you have a work related back injury, they have a right to your medical records related to your back. They don’t have a right to information about mental health care, or problems with your shoulder, or cancer treatment or anything else.

The insurance company might deny your case for invalid reasons. It happens all the time. If they don’t, they are looking for a reason to do that and limit what they pay. This includes assigning a nurse case manager to your case. You don’t have to talk to that person. They might try to talk to your doctor to influence your care. That’s illegal. All they can legally do is ask for copies of medical records and bills.

Another insurance company tactic is to send you to a doctor of their choosing. This is called an independent medical exam or IME. It’s often a hired gun doctor who will state that your injuries aren’t work related or that you don’t need to be off work or have surgery. These “exams” usually last less than five minutes and they try to substitute their opinion for that of your treating doctor who knows you well.

If it sounds like the insurance company isn’t on your side, it’s because they aren’t.

The good news is that an experienced Illinois workers’ compensation lawyer can protect you and push back. It costs nothing to hire a lawyer or file a case. If your benefits are delayed or denied, we can file a trial motion to get you in front of an Arbitrator and get an order for them to pay your benefits.

When you are all better and back to work or as good as you can get medically, we will be able to get you a settlement. How much your case is worth depends on how bad the injury was, what treatment you had and might need in the future, how much you earned, your age and your ultimate recovery. Almost every case has value. It can be as little as a couple thousand dollars to many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Attorneys get paid 20% of whatever settlement you get. Aside from a lawyer protecting you as the case goes on, you will almost always get more in a settlement because you have a lawyer. If the case is lost you owe nothing.

And those are the basics. There are more things that can happen based on the case. If you have any questions about Illinois workers comp law, please get in touch with us any time.

Illinois Work Injury Questions -Talk To A Lawyer For Free

By Mike Helfand on Posted in Tips if Injured

Our Illinois workers compensation law firm will talk to you for free. Fill out our contact form, start a chat or call us at 888-705-1766.

We get so many great questions from injured workers that turn into blog posts. Some questions I think people would be interested in, but there’s not much more to say than the answer. So a couple of times a year we compile those questions into one post. Here are some of the best ones we’ve received over the last few months.

If I fire my attorney, does the insurance company still get to keep their attorney?

Yes. What you do with your lawyer is your business and what they do is their business. If you go at it alone, the case will be you vs a likely well trained attorney and that would not be a good idea. But you can almost always get a new one if there isn’t a settlement offer yet.

Do I need a claim number to hire you?

No. Claim numbers are internal numbers the insurance company creates for their files. They have no legal relevance and don’t prevent us in any way from hitting the ground running.

I’m a teacher. I got hit in the face with a ball at recess, and my glasses broke. Who is responsible for paying them?

While the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act is great, this unfortunately isn’t a typical benefit although it’s arguable that it’s a medical injury and that the insurance company should pay for it. Basically if this case went forward it would be a negotiable issue, but for the most part this is not typically covered.

I want to know if I can reopen a case even if I got I settlement?

Unless there’s something very unusual about your settlement contract (and your lawyer should have told you if there was) then the answer is no, you can’t. Settlements are done to close out your case and prevent you coming back. Before you accept a settlement, your lawyer should make this fact clear to you.

That said, if you sustained a new work related injury to the same body part, you can potentially start a new case and we’d be happy to discuss that with you.

My IME is scheduled for seven in the morning. That’s too early for me. Do I have to go?

Generally speaking yes you do. If you skip an IME, they can legally terminate your benefits. The exception would be if there’s a medical reason that you can’t get there such as needing assistance or your doctor otherwise saying so. Even with this, if the IME is set for 7 or 8 a.m., we’d make a call to the insurance company to try and get it pushed back a couple of hours.

Can an employee of the state of Illinois who was injured during the scope of employment bring a claim at the Illinois Court of Claims?

Every other week or so we get a question with a lot of legal jargon in it. The Court of Claims is the system used for suing the state of Illinois. It doesn’t apply to work comp because work comp claims are not lawsuits. State of Illinois workers file their cases at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission just like anyone else.

If you have any Illinois work comp questions, please do not hesitate to reach out for a free consultation.

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.

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