Illinois Workers' Compensation Attorneys Blog

One issue that can arise when Illinois employees who are hurt at work are seeking workers' compensation is that of preexisting conditions. This sort of issue arises often with back injuries such as herniated discs, or injuries affecting joints such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Also, the issue is prevalent in cases where the condition may be attributed to some sort of degenerative disease.

Under the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act, a worker is entitled to benefits if they can show that the preexisting condition was "aggravated or accelerated" by their employment. This means that if you can identify something from your work that made the condition surface, worsen, or speed up, then you may have a workers' compensation claim despite having been previously diagnosed or having a past medical history indicating that such a condition existed.

However, there are some restrictions to the compensability of preexisting conditions. For instance, there must be a specific time, place, and cause of the aggravation. It is not enough to simply claim prolonged stress when attempting to establish a claim for aggravation of a preexisting condition. Also, if your preexisting condition is the actual cause of your injury, then it may not be compensable. Falls and accidents arising from individual medical conditions are deemed "idiopathic" and workers who suffer injuries of this nature are generally not entitled to benefits under Illinois workers' compensation law. This is fairly common with conditions such as seizures, and recently the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission dealt with that issue in determining that a worker with a history of epilepsy was having a seizure when his forklift crashed, and therefore the injuries arising out of the accident were not compensable.

Preexisting conditions can present a hurdle to obtaining benefits under workers' compensation law. Defense attorneys and doctors will try to pin your current injury on those conditions in order to get out off providing for the benefits you deserve. However, if your doctor believes that your employment caused your injury, regardless of any preexisting conditions, then an Illinois Workers' Compensation Attorney can fight for you and help you receive the benefits you deserve.

One of the key issues in establishing a workers' compensation claim in Illinois is showing that the injury was "causally connected" to or "arose out of" the work performed. This means that you have to be able to prove that something related to your job actually caused your condition. In some cases, this causal connection is obvious and undisputed, such as when a worker is involved in an industrial accident or construction accident of some sort and suffers a back injury, a muscular sprain or strain, or a bone fracture. There, it is usually clear that the accident caused the injury. Similarly, if your job requires repetitive motions such as twisting and turning, a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome or cubital tunnel syndrome in your wrist or arm can potentially be connected to the repetitive nature of your work.

However, just because an injury happens at work does not necessarily mean it is a work injury. Claims have consistently been denied when it is revealed the injury resulted from some sort of horseplay on the jobsite. In those cases, the courts have determined that because they were engaging in activities outside of their expected work duties, the workers could not claim the injuries "arose out of" their employment.

Conversely, just because an injury happens away from work does not mean it is not a work injury. Workers compensation is not limited to incidents occurring within the walls of a factory or office, or within the fences surrounding a jobsite. The doctrine of the "traveling employee" dictates that if your job requires you to travel, then injuries occurring during those travels may be found to arise out of your employment. This is not limited to cross-country travels, or even cross-town. If your job requires you to take to the streets on a regular basis, you may be considered a traveling employee, and an injury incurred while on the streets may be compensable.

For example, recently an appellate court in Illinois awarded an injured worker benefits for broken wrists she suffered when she fell on a sidewalk while walking from her office to a bank to make deposits for the company she worked for. Even though she was not necessarily "at work" when it happened, because she was performing a function for her job that required her to be on the streets, the court found that the accident was causally connected and arose out of her job.

Illinois Work Injury Attorneys deal with the issue of "causal connection" in every case they handle, and can help you determine if the injury you suffered can be connected to the work duties you performed.

Many Illinois Workers' Compensation cases follow the same timeline: Injury, Treatment, Maximum Medical Improvement, Release to Work. Workers' Compensation Attorneys help their clients by obtaining payment for reasonable and necessary medical treatment as well as for time off work, and by recovering benefits for any permanent lingering effects or disability sustained from the injury. Also, they help recover any lost earning potential the client may suffer once they have reached Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI) and are released to work in whatever capacity their doctor prescribes.

But what if that isn't the end of it? Despite a patient being released from medical care, sometimes an injury may resurface at a later date. Fortunately, the Workers Compensation Act provides for recovery in just that sort of situation. If there is a material change in your condition after your treatment has "completed", you may still be entitled to further medical care. Also, you may be entitled to reconsideration of the permanent lingering effects or lost earning potential.

Sometimes the severity of an injury isn't discovered until months or years after it occurs. That was the issue recently addressed in a case by the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission. After a worker injured her shoulder and was diagnosed with a shoulder sprain, she completed treatment and was released to work full duty. However, she continued to feel pain and take medications for over a year. She was later diagnosed as having rotator cuff tendinitis. The Commission found sufficient evidence that even though she had completed treatment for the initial diagnosis of a sprain and been released to work regular duty, the tendinitis was related to her earlier injury and was therefore compensable.

Workers' compensation law provides for a worker not just during treatment for a work injury, but after a doctor has determined treatment is finished as well. If you are concerned that your previously treated condition is returning or was never resolved, a workers' compensation attorney may be able to help you.

Illinois Workers' Compensation News: On April 14, 2011 Illinois Senate Bill 1349, a proposed amendment to the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act, was defeated. The proposed amendment would have drastically altered or eliminated many of the rights and benefits that workers' compensation attorneys in Chicago and across Illinois have been fighting for on behalf of injured workers for years. Among some of the proposed changes were:

Providing explicit definitions for the terms "accident" and "injury";
Stricter guidelines for establishing causal connections between the workers' injury and the work accident or circumstances of employment;

Eliminating the injured worker's right to choose their own physician for the first 60 days following notice of the accident, and replacing it with the employer's right to choose which physician may initially diagnose and treat an injury;

Eliminating Temporary Total Disability (TTD) benefits for injured workers if they are fired for cause, regardless of whether they have finished treating or are able to work;

Eliminating an employer's liability to provide medical care or benefits beyond an initial emergency inpatient or outpatient visit if the employee was intoxicated by alcohol, marijuana, or any controlled substance when he or she was injured;

Terminating wage differential awards at the time when either the employee reaches the age of 67, or when the award has been paid for 5 years, whichever occurs at a later date;
Stricter guidelines for establishing the extent of an injured workers' Permanent Partial Disability (PPD) after treatment has concluded;

Clearly, this proposed amendment would have had a devastating effect on the rights that injured workers have relied on in order to receive the benefits they deserve. However, Senate Bill 1349 only received 25 of the 30 votes required in order for the bill to pass, and the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act survives in its current form to provide for the injured worker.

Generally, if an employee is injured while driving to or from work, the injury is not covered under Illinois Workers' Compensation law. However, exceptions have been recognized in incidents where the employee's job requires travel, such as if the employee is a traveling salesman, and being on the road may be seen as part of the employee's job responsibilities.

In a recent case, the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission recognized further circumstances where an injury incurred while driving may fall under the law. The employee in that case was injured in a car accident while driving a company car home from work. The employer had furnished the worker with the car for work purposes, and it was generally not used for personal purposes.

The Commission determined that the employee's use of the company car exclusively for work purposes was for the benefit of the employer. Because the employer was seeing a benefit from the employee's use of the company car while at home, the employee's home became a "second base" of operations for the employer. Therefore, the worker was not outside the scope of his employment when the accident occurred during his drive from the office to this "second base", and the Commission awarded the injured employee Workers' Compensation benefits.

This case is just the most recent development in a line of cases addressing the "second base" idea. The key to these cases has been that the worker is providing some benefit for his or her employer at home - whether it may be maintaining a dealership car to respond to customer calls or working from home to prepare materials for work - and has thus established his home as a "second base" of operations. When that has been established, the drive between the traditional workplace and home may be seen to be within the scope of employment, and injuries occurring on the drive may be compensable under Illinois Workers' Compensation law.

If you think you may have a similar claim, contact an Illinois Workers' Compensation Attorney today.