Notable Cases

• Penalties

  Attorney Andrew T. Bell recently settled a case wherein the Respondent agreed to pay penalties of over $12,000. The claimant slipped on a box at a factory and fractured her right wrist. She was taken to the Emergency Department, and surgery was performed the following day.

  After repeated attempts to get her medical bills paid, she contacted our office for help. Our office filed a claim against the factory where she was working and the uninsured temporary staffing agency that sent her there. After soundly rejecting their settlement offer of $2,000, we were able to negotiate a settlement with the temporary staffing agency for a substantial loss of use of her hand, payment of medical bills, penalties for the delay in payment of benefits and medical bills, and attorney’s fees for recovering the penalties. This totaled just under $30,000.

  Said one of the attorneys on the other side, “I’ll never forget this file and still can’t believe they paid the penalties voluntarily.”

• Repetitive Trauma

  Many workers are not injured by a specific incident, but rather through a course of repetitive trauma to a specific body part. It is often thought that workers must have years of continued repetitive trauma to the same body part to be successful with a workers’ compensation claim; however, this is not always the case.

  Attorney Meghan N. O’Brien successfully argued a case before the Illinois Appellate Court where a worker sustained a repetitive trauma injury to his neck and shoulder after eight days of repetitive overhead movements with welding.

  The case was won before the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the decision that the injured worker’s repetitive work activities caused his neck and shoulder injury and that it arose out of and in the course of his employment.

   

• Truck Accident, $1.0 Million Settlement

  Settlement of $1.0 million reached on behalf of the estate of a 71-year-old driver whose vehicle was struck by a semi-tractor trailer at an intersection.                    

• 17-Year-Old Girl Killed in Car Accident

  Settlement reached on behalf of a 17-year-old girl killed in car accident caused by a drunk driver for just under $1,000,000.00. The driver only had an insurance policy of $250,000.00.

• Suburban Firefighter's Workers' Compensation Rights

  Appellate Court upholds judgment in favor of suburban firefighter. Village claimed the injury to claimant's knee was not covered under the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act, claiming that his roughhousing with a co-worker precluded workers’ compensation benefits. The Village was unsuccessful.  Our office proved that the claimant did not instigate roughhousing and merely defended himself, thereby bringing his injury under the Act.

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