In 2007 an injured worker with a left shoulder rotator cuff tear and a massive acromion tear, that was surgically repaired with an arthroscopic procedure received an award of 25% of an arm. The arbitrator found that the injured employee who was 57 years old and employedas a factory worker returned to work regular duty. The employee reports that he has numbness in his left arm and trouble reaching with his left arm.
When you’re injured at work you are entitled to three basic worker’s compensation benefits.
A. Medical Benefits. An injured employee is entitled to receive all the necessary first aid, medical, surgical and hospital services reasonably required to cure his condition of ill being resulting from his work injury.
B. Temporary Total Disability Benefits (TTD). The injured worker is entitled to temporary total disability benefits. This means the injured worker is entitled to receive two-thirds of his or her average weekly wage during the time he or she is unable to return to work as a result of the work-related injury. The temporary total disability (TTD) benefits are payable after the first three days the injured worker is off due to a work-related injury. If the injured worker is off work for more than 14 days for that same injury, the Worker’s Compensation Act requires the worker’s compensation insurance carrier to pay the injured worker the first three days he or she was off.
C. Permanent Partial Disability Benefits (PPD). At the conclusion of the case the injured worker is entitled to a permanent partial disability (PPD) benefit. This PPD benefit is calculated as a percentage of disability for each body part that was injured in the work-related injury times 60% of the average weekly wage up to the current statutory maximum rate. The current maximum PPD rate is $636.15.
After the work injury, the injured worker must notify his or her employer of the work accident promptly. The law requires notification within 45 days of the injury. The notice must be given to a person who is part of the management team of the company as opposed to only a co-worker. The notice of the injury does not need to be in writing, but the injured worker must notify his or her employer as to the date, time and place of the work injury.
Every employer in the State of Illinois is required by law to purchase worker’s compensation insurance coverage for their employees. The State of Illinois has formulated an insurance compliance division, they have hired investigators to ensure that every employer has worker’s compensation insurance. Failure of an employer to carry worker’s compensation insurance subjects that employer to stiff financial penalties.
You can easily check to determine if your employer has worker’s compensation insurance by visiting the Illinois Worker’s Compensation website at www.state.il.us/agency/iic/ and then click on the right-hand side of the webpage “Employer Insurance Coverage Search”. From there you can follow the prompts to determine if your employer does, in fact, carry worker’s compensation insurance and learn the identity of the insurance carrier.
If you have been injured at work, the Illinois Workers Compensation Act provides you benefits such as payment of all your related medical bills, two thirds of your wages, as you heal from your work injury and a permanent disability settlement when you fully recover from your injury. This is great if your employer has workers compensation insurance, but what happens if your employer does not have insurance? Until recently your only option was to file a claim, try the case and try to collect against the employer. Usually if the employer did not carry workers compensation insurance the likely hood of recovery was slim to none, furthermore it was hard if not impossible find an attorney to take your case because of the amount of work involved and the chance of recovery was so small.
Recently, the Illinois legislature passed the Injured Workers’ Benefit Fund. That fund will pay out in a one time benefit, the total amount of all your benefits if ou can prove at trial your entire case and the fact that the employer was not insured. The Illinois trial lawyers association had there annual workers compensation seminar and provided the members with the formula and format on how to bring a claim against the fund so you can recover actual dollars instead of just a piece of paper stating that you obtained a judgement.
Attorney David N. Rechenberg is a member of the Illinois Trial lawyers Association and he was at the seminar and he can help you recover money if our have been hurt at work and your employer did not have workers compensation insurance coverage. He can file a claim against the Illinois Injured Workers’Benefit Fund for you !
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
Illinois Workers Compensation | admin | 
February 12, 2009 1:10 pm | 
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