This is a new subject to lawyers in this state, so people who attend this seminar can be on the forefront and make the best arguments for their clients.

You can sign up for the seminar here.

(Howard Zimmerle is a personal injury and workers compensation attorney in Rock Island, Illinois, handling cases in much of the state and in Iowa. He can be reached at 309-794-1660 or hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com. You can also follow him on twitter). 

For people in my area, this means that most everyone who was hurt in Rock Island, Henry, Mercer, Whiteside or Warren County will have hearings at the American Legion, 1509 Railroad Avenue, Kewanee. Interestingly, many Knox County cases will be heard in Peoria, but Galesburg workers comp cases will be heard in Kewanee too. The smart thing is to check the hearing site location table, or hire a lawyer.

(Howard Zimmerle is a workers compensation lawyer practicing in all of the above counties. He can be reached at hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com or 309-794-1660).

One of the most noticeable changes will be the difference in hearing sites across the state. Downstate Illinois is now split up into six “regions”.

Region 1: Collinsville, Mt. Vernon, Herrin

Region 2: Quincy, Urbana, Springfield

Region 3: Kewanee, Peoria, Bloomington

Region 4: Geneva, Ottawa, Joliet

Region 5: Rockford, Waukegan, Woodstock

Region 6: Wheaton

Each region is assigned three different arbitrators. Here is how this affects injured workers:

1. Many people will have to drive further to have their case heard. This is a killer for many who aren’t working, aren’t getting paid, or are getting paid only 2/3 of their normal wages. People from Rock Island, for example, who used to have to go to City Hall, will now have to drive an hour to Kewanee. Not only is this expensive, it can also be difficult for people to arrange transportation, especially if they can’t drive themselves.

2. Each case is assigned to an arbitrator who won’t be there 2 out of every 3 months. This means that people who need urgent medical care, or who aren’t being paid for their time off of work will often have to go even further and find the arbitrator at whatever hearing site they happen to be assigned to that month. In other words, if you are injured in Rock Island County, and the arbitrator assigned to your case isn’t in Kewanee that month, you may need to go to Bloomington or Peoria to hear your case. That’s a lot of driving.

3. Pre-trials will be less frequent. One easy way to resolve disputes about value is to have a “pre-trial” in front of the arbitrator. This way, if the employer says the case is worth x and we say the case is worth y, we can talk to the same arbitrator who will eventually decide the case, and the arbitrator will tell us what he/she would probably do (as in saying “the case is worth x plus $5,000). We had this opportunity every month, but now will only have the opportunity every 3 months. This makes cases harder to resolve and may create some backlog.

We’ll see how things shake out. Once there is a new accident location table (which will tell you which region and hearing site you are in), I will post again.

(Howard Zimmerle is a workers compensation lawyer in Illinois. He can be reached at 309-794-1660 or at hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com). 

Probably the most important factor in the value of your workers comp case is your average weekly wage in the 52 weeks before the accident. You want that wage to be as high as possible, because the more money you made in that 52 week period, the more your case is worth. Unfortunately, calculating the average weekly wage isn’t as simple as adding up what you made and dividing by 52.

Not all “wages” are “wages” for workers comp purposes. Things like shift differential pay, per diems, overtime and bonuses may or may not be considered “wages,” and whether they are can sometimes greatly change the value of the case. (Consider the worker who makes, say $10 an hour but routinely works 60 hour weeks. With a serious back injury, the difference in calculating wages with or without overtime could be $20,000 or more. Think your employer is going to watch out for you and do things right?)

A recent case hold that bonuses can be part of a worker’s wages for workers comp purposes if the bonuses are tied to production, and non-discretionary. In other words, if you get a bonus for working a certain number of required hours, or for a certain level of production or sales, your bonus should be considered when they calculate the value of your workers comp case. If the bonus is something your boss just gives you on occasion when she is feeling nice, it’s probably not part of your comp case.

As always, it’s smart to talk to a good Illinois workers comp lawyer if you have questions and want to maximize the value of your case – and who doesn’t?

(Howard Zimmerle is a workers compensation and personal injury attorney in Rock Island, Illinois. He practices throughout western and central Illinois. You can contact him at 309-794-1660 or hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com). 

False. Illinois law allows compensation for aggravations or accelerations of a pre-existing condition. For example, if you had a bad back, but then made it much worse in an accident at work, you may be entitled to compensation.

2. I can’t recover if it’s my fault or no one’s fault.

False. Fault doesn’t really matter (with some exceptions, such as an employee’s own intoxication). By that same token, it doesn’t really matter that your employer was negligent or dangerous or whatever.

3. Workers comp only covers medical bills.

Very false. If you are injured in the course and scope of your employment, you are entitled to your reasonable and necessary medical bills, PLUS 2/3 of your average weekly wage for any time you have to miss because of your injuries, AND compensation for your disability, if you have any. There is significant compensation even for injuries that heal, like torn ligaments, broken bones, etc.

4. If I have a workers comp case, I can’t be fired.

False. You can’t be fired for filing a workers comp case, but you can still be fired for whatever you could have been fired for before your injury. I wrote about that in more detail here.

5. I don’t need a lawyer for my case.

Could be true or false. Many employers (Tyson foods in Joslin is notorious about this) promise to take care of employees if they don’t hire a lawyer. They make promises. Then they break promises. A good workers compensation attorney can help you (1) get the right medical treatment, (2) make sure you are paid the right amount while you are off work, (3) make sure you get the most money you can at the end of the case, and (4) help you through a trying, difficult and confusing process. You don’t always need a lawyer. When you do, we’re here.

(Howard Zimmerle is a workers compensation lawyer in Rock Island Illinois, handling workers compensation and accident cases in Rock Island County, Henry County, Knox County, and many other areas. He can be reached at 309-794-1660 or hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com)

1. The causation standard did not change. This is big. Republicans and big business wanted to require the work-related accident or trauma to be the main cause. As it is currently, the law only requires the work to be a cause – so aggravations or accelerations of preexisting conditions are still covered. If that had been changed, most serious back, neck, and repetitive trauma cases would have been more difficult to prove, and many people would have been denied compensation.

2a. Speaking of repetitive trauma, there is now a cap on most carpal tunnel awards at 15% of a hand. This is in response to the idea that carpal tunnel cases are easy money and often abused (which I partially debunked here). It could be worse. The AMA guides often lead to a 0% impairment rating for carpal tunnel cases. In Iowa, many carpal tunnel cases are worth nothing at hearing for this reason. Also, the new law allows awards of more than 15% if there is clear and convincing evidence of a more serious problem, in which case the award is still capped at 30%. I’ve had cases where things have gone horribly wrong after carpal tunnel surgery (things like pulmonary emboli) that, I assume, would still qualify for a body as a whole award. Hopefully.

2b. Just as importantly, a hand is now worth 190 weeks again, as opposed to 205 weeks as it has been since February 2006. This not only affects carpal tunnel cases, but any injury of the hand. That could reduce the value of an amputated hand by as much as $18,000 (or as little as $7,000, depending on the injured person’s wage rate). The change in a 15% carpal tunnel case won’t be nearly as severe. (Suggested new state slogan: Illinois – where your hand is worth no more than $236,170 but no less than $88,564.70). Would anyone trade their hand for $236,000? Anyway, I’m getting off track…

3. More written criteria for the assessment of disability, including the AMA guides. The big change is that each injured worker, once they heal up, will be given an impairment rating from their doctor. The doctor is to use the most recent edition of the AMA guides to come up with this rating. The most recent edition is the 6th Edition, which has many flaws and has been rejected by the State of Iowa Workers Compensation Commissioner, for reasons outlined here. From personal experience, I’ve found that the AMA guides are still open to interpretation, and different doctors will almost always come up with different impairment ratings using the guides.

Nevertheless, the doctor’s impairment rating is just one consideration. The arbitrator is also supposed to consider the employee’s occupation, age, disability, and loss of future earning capacity. Once again, I don’t think this changes much, but I have a feeling some arbitrators will put greater weight into the physician’s impairment rating.

4. The intoxication defense. If an employee’s intoxication is the proximate cause of an injury, the employee gets nothing. This is actually a bigger deal than it sounds like, because there is a rebuttable presumption that an employee who tests positive for marijuana (at any level) was intoxicated and that the intoxication caused his injury. Why is that a big deal? THC can stay in someone’s system for weeks, even months after use. It would be possible for someone to get run over by a forklift, but lose their workers comp case because they used marijuana a month ago. Of course, a good workers comp lawyer would hire a toxicologist to rebut the presumption and hopefully win the case, but the costs, time, risk and difficulty go up quite a bit. I’m all for the idea that some drunken idiot doesn’t profit from his own mistake, but the marijuana thing goes too far.

5. Unions in the construction industry can now get around the workers comp system. This scares me most because the statute refers to this as a “pilot program.” Look for someone to tout the results of this after a year or two and try to apply this to all industries within the next two years.

6. Wage differential awards are limited to age 67 or 5 years, whichever is longer.

7. The medical fee schedule is cut by 30%. This means that doctors and hospitals get paid less than they used to for the same work.

8. Arbitrators are all fired – sort of, and their jobs will change. All current arbitrators will be fired, but some will be re-hired, and all will stay on until they are replaced. More importantly, no arbitrator can be assigned to the same hearing site for more than 2 years, and each hearing site will be assigned to at least 3 arbitrators. I have no idea how comp calls will work with three arbitrators. Maybe things will move faster, maybe not. I assume the state will have to hire more arbitrators or face a bigger backlog of cases. One real downside to this is the lack of predictability. If an attorney or insurance company has a great deal of experience with a local arbitrator, it can usually predict what that arbitrator will do in a certain situation. This allows us to accurately advise our clients. Now… maybe not so much.

There is more to it, but I’ve outlined the points that will matter the most to attorneys and their clients. You can read the entire bill that passed here.

Questions? Concerns? Comments?

(Howard Zimmerle is a personal injury and workers compensation attorney in the Quad City area, with an office in Rock Island. He is a member of the Illinois Workers Compensation Section Council. He can be reached at 309-794-1660 or hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com). 

820 ILCS 305/7  covers compensation for fatal injuries. If the employee leaves a widow and/or children, the employer must pay compensation (typically 2/3 of the average weekly wage for the 52 weeks before the accident, but with minimum and maximum weekly amounts – currently $466.13 and $1,243) until the death of the widow or widower or when the youngest child turns 18, whichever is later. However, if the child is enrolled full time as a student at an accredited educational institution, the payments can continue until he/she turns 25.

If there are no children and the widow/widower remarries, benefits may stop after a lump sum is paid.

There are also rules about surviving parents (who are totally dependent on the deceased), children who are totally dependent on the deceased, burial expenses, and payments to non-resident alien dependents.

Finally, the compensation is increased if the injured employee was under 16 and illegally employed at the time of the death.

The neat thing about this is that, if there is no dispute as to the liability of the employer and the employer pays the proper amount of compensation in a timely manner, an attorney can’t charge more than $100 for these cases. There’s no risk in talking to a lawyer! It’s a good idea to do so, just because these cases are still complicated, and a good workers compensation lawyer can tell you whether compensation has been paid in the right amount, and may be able to determine whether someone else is responsible and if a wrongful death lawsuit may be appropriate.

(Howard Zimmerle is a workers compensation and wrongful death lawyer in Rock Island Illinois who regularly practices in Galesburg, Cambridge, Knox County, Henry County and other surrounding areas. He can be reached at 309-794-1660 or hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com)

Is it that easy? Can you find a doctor who says you have carpal tunnel or cubital tunnel and just get the Illinois Workers Comp system to pay you thousands of dollars?

No. It’s not that easy, at least not all of the time.

I have handled many carpal tunnel, cubital tunnel, radial tunnel, or lateral epicondylitis workers comp cases in my career. Some have settled easily, some haven’t. I’ve even lost some. What can people really expect if they have a carpal tunnel case?

1. There needs to be proof that you actually have the condition. A “doctor’s note” isn’t usually enough. Doctors can do tests, which usually include simple tests such as the Tinel or Phalen test, but usually involve electrodiagnostic tests such as EMGs. If all you do is walk in to your family doctor’s office, tell them your wrists/elbows/hands hurt, and he hands you a slip of paper saying you have carpal tunnel, you need to find a different doctor. Likewise, any good workers comp insurance company will likely require at least an EMG.

2. There needs to be causation. In other words, your work activities need to have aggravated or accelerated your condition. Not all work activities do this – many orthopedic surgeons I’ve spoken to over the years suggest that everyday office activities such as typing do not aggravate or accelerate these conditions. Likewise, there is a significant amount of medical literature which suggests that carpal tunnel and similar conditions are idiopathic in most cases – meaning there is no known cause.

3. Your employer may require a second opinion. It’s typical for employers to send their injured employees to an “Independent Medical Examination” for a second opinion. Many of these doctors do a lot of work for insurance companies and are chosen specifically for their defense-oriented beliefs. Much of the time, their opinion will be that either (a) you don’t have the condition your doctor says you do, or (b) you have that condition, but you didn’t get it from work… and actually, (c) you have it, but you should be better by now, and the fact that you say you aren’t means you’re lying.

4. You have to give notice to your employer, and if you didn’t do it right, your employer might deny that you ever did it at all. Illinois law requires that an employee give notice to his employer within 45 days of when an injury “manifests itself.” When does a repetitive trauma injury such as carpal tunnel “manifest itself?” Typically someone starts to notice symptoms long before the symptoms get to the point where work is affected, or where someone feels the need to talk to a doctor. But because there is no bright line (ie 45 days from when you first notice pain, or when you first get diagnosed with the condition, etc) winning these cases can be tricky. Even in a good case, your employer may try to either deny that any notice was given or argue that notice wasn’t given early enough.

The bottom line is that some of these cases are easy – for example, a worker who uses heavy, vibrating tools all day will likely develop one of these conditions after time. Those cases might not involve much of a fight. Other cases will be heavily contested. An attorney isn’t always necessary, but when there is a fight, you probably want someone good on your side. (Not to mention that hiring an attorney early on may help you take the right steps with your case and avoid much of the fight altogether.)

(Howard Zimmerle is a workers compensation attorney helping injured workers in Rock Island, Moline, East Moline, Galesburg, and much of western Illinois. He can be reached at 309-794-1660 or hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com)

Of course, insurance companies tend to deny these cases, and workers will often find that winning the compensation they deserve is an uphill battle. Once again, a good Illinois Workers Compensation Lawyer who has successfully tried and settled cases and been through the process can be a very valuable ally to the injured worker.

Obviously, there can be exceptions to this (along with everything else… one more reason to talk to a lawyer). The key is not to worry that, say, the fact that you told your doctor that you strained your back while shoveling snow in 1985 will prevent you from recovering for a major work-related accident that caused you to herniate a disc. With skillful handling, such cases can be winnable.

(Howard Zimmerle is a workers compensation and personal injury lawyer practicing in Rock Island, Moline, East Moline, Silvis, Galesburg, Geneseo, Kewanee, Cambridge and other areas of western Illinois. He can be reached at hzimmerle [at] mjwlaw.com or 309-794-1660)

This seminar is a Continuing Legal Education seminar to help practicing attorneys. Mr. Zimmerle presented at the Fairview Heights version of this seminar in 2010.