Illinois’ altered workers’ comp law doesn’t block asbestos plaintiffs and others who discover diseases allegedly caused by workplace exposures to toxic substances from suing their former employers, even if the alleged disease-causing exposure happened many decades in the past, the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled.
On Jan. 24, the Illinois Supreme Court sided with the family of a man who died of liver cancer in their dispute with the man’s former employer, the B.F. Goodrich Company.
In the decision, the high court specifically said B.F. Goodrich’s constitutional rights weren’t violated by a change to the state’s workers’ compensation law, which could now force Goodrich and likely many other employers in Illinois to defend against potential lawsuits from the past, from which the workers’ comp law had previously shielded them.
The case centered on a change to the Illinois Workers’ Occupational Diseases Act, enacted by Illinois state lawmakers in 2019.
Under the change, known as Section 1.1, the state’s Democratic legislative supermajority decided to clear the way for people whose claims would have been previously been blocked by the state’s workers’ comp system to sue in court.
The legislation specifically removed the 25-year statute of limitations on work-related injuries and knocked down the principle that the workers’ comp system should serve as the sole exclusive remedy available to hold companies accountable for so-called “latent illnesses or injuries” arising allegedly as a result to asbestos or other toxic substances in the workplace.
Before the 2019 amendments to the workers’ comp law, workers in Illinois were barred from pressing claims against employers for cancers and other “latent injuries” which allegedly occurred as a result of exposures more than 25 years in the past.
That bar was reinforced by the Illinois Supreme Court in 2015, which ruled that despite the “harsh result,” the court could not overrule the plain text of the law.
Four years later, at the urging of the state’s powerful trial lawyer lobby, the General Assembly enacted Section 1.1, explicitly declaring that people can sue former employers over alleged workplace toxic exposures beyond the 25 year limit.
At the time, business advocates warned the change to the law would result in many new lawsuits, as trial lawyers seek to extract payouts for cases that had previously been blocked by the workers’ comp law. They asserted Section 1.1 would face constitutional challenges.
The new decision comes as Illinois courts, particularly in Cook, Madison and St. Clair counties, continue to be recognized as among the leaders in America for asbestos-related lawsuits.
The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) has consistently labeled those county courts as among America’s worst “judicial hellholes” for allowing massive numbers of asbestos-related claims to be filed, often resulting in massive so-called “nuclear verdicts,” thanks to court rules which often effectively tie the hands of defendants and their lawyers.
ATRA’s 2024 Judicial Hellhole report noted asbestos-related filings in St. Clair County surged by 40% in the first six months of 2024 and by 34% in Cook County. Nationally, such lawsuits increased by only 8%, the report said.
In the latest case before the Illinois Supreme Court, the family of Rodney Martin had filed suit against Goodrich in 2021, claiming he died of liver cancer caused by exposure to vinyl chloride while working for Goodrich. According to court documents, Martin was diagnosed in December 2019 with angiosarcoma of the liver, a rare, aggressive type of cancer reportedly linked to exposure to vinyl chloride and other chemicals, or radiation.
Martin died in July 2020.
His widow, Candice Martin, filed suit in November 2021.
Martin’s filings specifically referenced the exception in Section 1.1, saying her wrongful death claims aren’t blocked by the workers’ comp law, even though her husband’s alleged toxic exposure occurred at least 45 years before his diagnosis.
In response, Goodrich challenged Section 1.1, saying the change to the law violated its constitutional due process rights. In their filings, Goodrich argued the law can’t be used to press claims arising from so far in the past, when the workers’ comp law had previously explicitly protected them and other employers from such decades-old lawsuits.
The case was taken to federal court in Peoria, and then to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
However, the Seventh Circuit punted on the case, saying they would defer to the Illinois Supreme Court to answer the potentially sticky questions over how to interpret and apply the changes to the workers’ comp law enacted in Section 1.1.
The state high court sided with the Martin family.
The unanimous 7-0 ruling was authored by Justice Lisa Holder White, one of the court’s two Republicans.
In the ruling, Holder White said the court believed Section 1.1 did not violate employers’ due process rights. Even though the alleged exposure may have occurred many decades in the past, Holder White said the claim underlying the lawsuit doesn’t actually arise until after someone discovers they were harmed.
That, she said, means that any right to protection employers thought they had under the workers’ comp law also doesn’t “accrue” until that moment, as well.
So, the court said, the changes in Section 1.1 can apply to new claims filed after the law was changed, even if they are based on alleged exposures far in the past.
“To hold otherwise,” she said, “would be to undermine the legislative intent in amending the Workers’ Occupational Diseases Act to include section 1.1,” which was to address and eliminated the “harsh result” in the state’s previous workers’ comp law identified by the Illinois Supreme Court in 2015.
The ruling drew praise from trial lawyers – particularly those who specialize in asbestos-related mesothelioma lawsuits.
While the case was before the state high court, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association filed a brief in support of Martin, urging the court to uphold Section 1.1 and keep the door open wide for likely many future workplace toxic exposure lawsuits.
In a statement released following the Illinois Supreme Court ruling, attorney Matthew J. Adair, of the asbestos personal injury firm of Cooney & Conway, who helped lead the ITLA filing, dedicated the victory to two deceased partners at his firm, John Cooney and Kathy Byrne.
The statement credited Cooney and Byrne with “a leading role for years in advancing this legislation,” which would eventually become Section 1.1.
“This decision in Martin v. Goodrich means that victims of asbestos exposure in Illinois will continue to have a right to pursue an action against their employers for causing their diseases, like mesothelioma,” the Cooney & Conway firm said in a statement posted to its site.
This article was first published in Cook County Record.
