Attorney General Kwame Raoul today convened the first meeting of a task force that will facilitate collaboration between the Attorney General’s office, county prosecutors and state agencies in order to better protect workers’ rights and law-abiding businesses in Illinois. The Worker Protection Unit Task Force was created under Senate Bill (SB) 161, which was initiated by Attorney General Raoul and…
A railway worker has accused his employer, Alton and Southern Railroad, of negligence following an accident at a rail yard. Dwayne Buchannon, who was employed by the Alton and Southern Railroad, a subsidiary of Union Pacific, filed suit Jan. 7 under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) in St. Clair County Circuit Court, claiming he suffered serious injuries when struck…
A St. Clair County jury awarded a motorist $3,000 after the plaintiff had requested $6 million in a trial involving a Fairview Heights collision. St. Clair County Circuit Judge Heinz Rudolf presided over the two day trial, which ended Jan. 22 when jurors entered a verdict in favor of plaintiff Elizabeth Waugh. She was awarded $3,000. Waugh had been represented…
The Illinois Workers Compensation Act does not allow medical providers to go after a workers compensation settlement received just after a bankruptcy filing. In Re Hernandez, the Illinois Supreme Court held on Friday that the proceeds of a workers comp settlement are exempt from claims made by medical providers who treated the injury or illness associated with that claim. Between…
A veteran police officer who ran a construction business does not qualify for a line-of-duty disability pension on the grounds that he did not prove his back condition was caused by a work incident, an appeals court in Illinois ruled Thursday. Terry Olson, who had been a police officer for the Village of Lombard for 29 years, applied for a…
A sushi restaurant cook who police said was attacked by his boss with a meat cleaver has filed a workers’s compensation claim, contending that the altercation came in the course of employment. Sushi Ya, said to be a popular restaurant with the Joliet legal community, was closed for a week after the bloody fight, according to a local news report….
Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon Inc. did not persuade the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a multi-million-dollar verdict for a northern Indiana woman who was injured by a transvaginal mesh implant produced by the company. A few years after having surgery to implant the mesh device known as Prolift, Barbara Kaiser began experiencing severe pelvic pain, bladder spasms…
A woman who sued an insurance company after she and her child were injured in a multi-vehicle crash showed a meritorious defense and misconduct of an adverse party in the case, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The appeals court sent the case back to the trial court for full consideration of her claims. After Robin Dunn and her…
Uncertainties on rising medical and indemnity costs, along with the continuing opioid crisis are among some of the top concerns of workers compensation experts going into 2020. With rising wages, increasing medical facility fees and new and expensive changes in medical care and pharmaceuticals, many in the industry are concerned about how costs may affect comp in the coming years….
Heartland Women’s Healthcare is at the center of a lawsuit following a procedure that allegedly led to a woman’s injuries. Amy and Nicholas Giacomo filed suit Dec. 16 in St. Clair County Circuit Court against the Heartland Women’s Healthcare and Dr. Debra Carson. The lawsuit names Dr. Joel Kwan Barrientos and Dr. Jeffrey Larson as respondents in discovery after they…
