In a recent Illinois Workers Compensation decision the commission found that an injured workers injury to his low back while shoveling snow at home several months after his work related low back injury did not bar his recovery for the initial injury. The petitioner injured his back at work in the summer and had an MRI which revealed Disc extrusions at L4-5 and at L5-S1.The petitioner had returned to work on less than full duty restrictions.
In December, while shoveling snow at home, the petitioner re injured his back and was treated at the emergency room and with his regular doctor.
The commission, in holding that the injury to his low back while shoveling snow did not break the causal connection to the work injury and the petitioner was entitled to workers compensation benefits. The commission determined that the original work injury weakened the petitioners condition of his low back, and the subsequent injury to the low back while shoveling snow only aggravated the original injury to the low back and the petitioner was entitled to benefits from the injury to his low back while shoveling snow.
The math in calculating a workers compensation settlement is really quite simple. The difficult part is determining the factors to insert into the settlement equation to calculate the settlement.
To calculate the workers compensation settlement, you take the injured workers average weekly wage (AWW) and multiply that by 60%, then take that number (which is subject to some maximins and minimums) multiply it by the percentage of the loss of use of the specific body part. There is usually a big dispute at to the percentage of loss of use for the specific body part and that is determined by the facts of each case. This number is the PPD settlement , which is an acronm for Permenant Partial Disability. This is the total amount of settlement money avaliable under the law to compensate the injured worker for his permenant disability for a loss of use case.
In Illinois the legislature has broken the body down into several parts and assigned each body part a total number of weeks. The total number of weeks each body part has represents the total value of that body part. For example the value or an arm is currently 253 weeks, regardless if it is your dominant arm. This number the highest number of weeks you could use in the settlement equation if your arm was amputated.
The calculation for the average weekly wage is quite simple if the injured workers is an hourly worker and works only 40 hours per week. The calculation is more difficult If the injured worker has worked over time or a second job that the employer knew about, then he may be able to use those wages to increase his AWW. A higher AWW calculates into a higher dollar workers compensation settlement.
A fresh case from the Third District of Illinois has held that an injured employee is not entitled to contuined workers compensation benefits when he is fired for cause that is unrelated to the work injury. In the new case of Interstate Scaffolding, Inc v. The Workers’ Compensation Commission, 3-07-00801 the court held that the petitioner who was on light duty working for the respondant with in his restrictions and not at MMI, defaced the compasy property when he had written religious inscriptions on the walls of a storage room in permanent marker with out the permission of the employer. Even though the petitioner had not yet recovered from his work injury, he was fired by the employer. The court in ruling the petitioner could no longer recover workers compensation benefits held the petitioner volunarily removed him self from the work force, by defacing the company property with religious slogans, thus he was not eligible for continued benefits. The court did not address in any detail the religious inscriptions.
If you want to keep getting Illinois Workers Compensation Benefits do not get fired for cause that is unrelated to your work injury!
www.IllinoisWorkInjuryLawyer.com
Work Injury | admin | 
September 29, 2009 3:43 pm | 
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