Ford Motor Workers’ Compensation Cases In Illinois

Since 2001, we have been helping people find the best Illinois workers’ compensation law firm for their case. Contact us at 312-346-5320 for a free case review.

If you go the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission website and search for Ford Motor Company cases, you will find thousands of claims against them over the years. That is because working at a Ford Assembly Plant like the one in the Hegewisch neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, and formerly (and soon to be again) in Belvidere is an inherently dangerous job.

The Chicago plant has around 5,000 workers and they work in heavy duty jobs like tool and die maker, production assembly, production associate, machine operator and other highly skilled trade jobs. There is a lot of lifting, bending, pulling and moving parts in general. This can and does lead to just about any imaginable injury. We have helped hundreds of Ford workers over the years and have seen a lot of back and neck injuries, torn rotator cuffs, elbow injuries, concussions and many other problems. Sadly, a lot of workers get injured from safety violations, but due to the high risk nature of the job, they also get hurt from bending over while lifting or walking the plant floor.

Unlike most Illinois businesses, the Chicago stamping plant and Ford in general is self insured. That means that they do not have insurance to pay their work injury claims, but rather pay them directly. As of this post, those claims are also managed in house although they have in the past used outside vendors. As a result, they are extra sensitive to their work comp costs and tend to fight these cases very hard. There have been times when they do so even when it does not appear that they have any good defense. They also seem to quickly refer their cases to defense attorneys to try and aggressively fight them.

What this means for you as an injured worker is that it is really important to have an experienced work injury attorney in your corner. You need someone who knows how Ford operates and has successfully represented many other Ford employees in the past. That does not guarantee a result, but increases your chances of success as well as of getting the highest possible settlement in the end.

One of the tactics Ford commonly uses is to require you to see their in house doctor after an injury. In our opinion, that doctor is often looking out for Ford over the injured worker. You have a right to see a doctor of your own choosing and should do so. If you only see their doctor it puts you at a huge disadvantage. You don’t want a doctor to ignore your problem and make it worse or deny you time off to recover (with pay) when you need it. Remember that if you are hurt at work, you do not need to have health insurance to get medical care. That is what work comp laws are for.

We have also seen cases where Ford encourages workers to apply for short term disability instead of workers’ compensation benefits. This is a problem because short term disability pays less than work comp in Illinois and when you fill out that form you have to state you were not hurt on the job. If you do that, you could lose all of your work comp rights including payment for 100% of your medical expenses and a chance to get a settlement.