19(b) Petitions for Immediate Hearing

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When you are hurt on the job in Illinois, you are usually entitled to medical care and weekly benefits if you can’t work. But what happens when the insurance company wrongly denies those benefits or delays your payments? That’s where a 19(b) petition for immediate hearing comes in.

A 19(b) petition is one of the strongest protections workers have under Illinois law. It keeps insurance companies from stalling and ensures you have a fair chance to get medical treatment and income benefits when you need them most.

How Workers’ Compensation Hearings Usually Work

Once your workers’ compensation case is filed, it will be assigned to an Arbitrator. Your case is put on a “status call” about once every 90 days. At those status hearings, the Arbitrator keeps track of your case and sets future trial dates.

Here’s the problem: if your benefits are cut off in February, you may not even be able to ask for a trial date until May—or later. That can mean months without income or medical care. Fortunately there is a solution that allows you to get into court sooner.

What a 19(b) Petition Does

A 19(b) petition is a legal tool that speeds up this process. Instead of waiting months for your next status call, your attorney can file this motion and get your case in front of the Arbitrator right away, usually at the next monthly hearing date.

Unlike a full trial that decides every issue in your case (including settlement value), a 19(b) hearing focuses only on urgent disputes, such as whether your case is work-related, whether the insurance company must pay for treatment and/or surgery, and whether you are owed temporary total disability (TTD) benefits.

In other words, it allows the Arbitrator to quickly decide whether you should be getting benefits now, instead of forcing you to wait. This trial does not end your case, it just results in a temporary ruling about your benefits. You will still be able to seek a settlement down the road.

Why Hiring the Right Attorney Matters

Most Illinois workers comp lawyers file 19(b) petitions, but not every one of them is ready and willing to take a 19(b) petition to trial. Preparing a case for hearing takes work. Your attorney needs to gather and review your complete medical records, possibly get depositions from your treating doctor and the IME doctor, and identify any needed witnesses to help you succeed.

If your attorney is inexperienced and/or lazy, and hasn’t been doing this work and building the file, it can take months to get ready for trial—even though the law allows for a much faster resolution.

Unfortunately, we often hear from injured workers whose benefits have been denied for months, even a full year, without ever having their case brought before an Arbitrator. Simply put, that’s bad lawyering. Most cases can be ready for trial in 2-4 months.