Job Application Rejections To Convince Workers’ Compensation Of Unemployability In Illinois

Getting your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance to pay for the treatment of your work-related injuries is the easy part. Sometimes the biggest disputes arise when injured workers and their employers disagree about the worker’s capacity for work after the injury after the worker reaches maximum medical improvement.

Some work injuries permanently affect one or more parts of the body, so you might need a less physically demanding job. Your employer might acknowledge that your physical limitations are permanent but disagree with you about how easy it is to find a new job.

In a perfect world, your employer would make reasonable accommodations for you to keep your old job or would reassign you to a different position within the same organization, but that does not always happen. If you have searched unsuccessfully for jobs that you are healthy enough to perform, but your employer refuses to acknowledge that you have a permanent disability that prevents you from being gainfully employed, contact a Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer.

Permanent Total Disability or Half-Hearted Job Search?

Phillip began working for the Streets and Sanitation Department for the City of Chicago in 1994. Before that, he had worked a series of manual labor jobs since he dropped out of school after the eighth grade. Phillip suffered a series of work injuries in the context of his work for the Streets and Sanitation Department, including injuries to his toe, arm, and abdomen. In 2006, Phillip injured his lower back while moving a five-pound bucket at work.

Workers’ compensation referred him to several doctors, who administered injections to control the pain; they recommended physical therapy, but instructed him to delay physical therapy on his back until his toe injury healed. A surgeon determined that Phillip was not a good candidate for surgery. The doctors gave him a series of physical tests, but they noted that Phillip’s performance on the tests did not match his self-reported symptoms. They testified that Phillip was able to perform sedentary work only.

Phillip attempted to claim permanent total disability, but his employer denied that he was unable to work, and the Workers’ Compensation Commission required him to continue looking for jobs. Phillip applied for more than 200 jobs, but his employer noted that some of the positions for which he had applied were not hiring.

On Appeal the Court ruled that Phillip was not permanently disabled, but it remanded the case to the lower court to determine what kind of disability benefits Phillip could receive, since he had suffered 35 percent loss of function for his entire body. The trial court would also need to determine what kind of employment, if any, Phillip would be required to seek.

Contact a Workers’ Compensation Lawyer About Work Injuries That Cause Permanent Damage

A workers’ compensation lawyer can help you if your employer does not believe you that you are no longer able to work. Contact Connolly Injury Law in Chicago, Illinois or call or text (312)780-0816.

Source:

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3148461877841096487&q=workers+compensation+market&hl=en&as_sdt=4,14&as_ylo=2012&as_yhi=2022