State Of Illinois Employee Work Injuries

We are experienced attorneys who will talk to you for free about your workers’ compensation case and connect you to the best lawyer for your claim. Contact us at 800-517-1614 any time.

If you are an employee of the State of Illinois and are injured on the job, you have the same rights as any other injured worker, but your case comes with challenges that most injured employees do not face.

While the law is the same for IDOT, IDOC, SOS, Illinois State Police and any other State worker, your case will potentially be affected by a few factors that do not happen to non State employees. This includes:

1. Dealing With The Illinois Attorney General – Most Illinois workers’ compensation cases are handled by insurance companies and private law firms. Those people are worried about doing a good job because they want to keep the business. The Illinois Attorney General defends all State of Illinois work injury claims. This is done, in part, to save the state money. These lawyers are not worried about losing a client if they do a bad job because they do not get paid based on how many hours they bill or how well they do on the case. As a result, they are not motivated to be responsive on cases. They will delay, be slow to respond to inquiries or just deny cases for no reason. If you do not have an aggressive, experienced attorney in your corner who knows how to deal with them, your case could drag on for years.
2. Prior bad press given to State workers with work injuries – From 2008 to 2012, there was an allegation that prison guards at Menard Correctional Center were filing fraudulent carpal tunnel claims and other false work injuries. A lot of these allegations were nonsense, but it got a lot of bad press. This has made the Attorney General even more difficult to deal with. Essentially honest workers can get punished for the acts of a few bad apples a long time ago. The Attorney General essentially assumes that workers are lying.

So the bottom line is that if you do not have an experienced and aggressive Illinois work comp lawyer in your corner, you will likely face challenges and your case will take longer than it should. The good news is that we know great attorneys throughout the state who have handled hundreds of cases with success against the State and know how to deal with the Attorney General’s Office.

State of Illinois workers also have some advantages when it comes to filing and winning work comp benefits that other workers do not. The main one is that thousands of workers do not have an office that they work in, but instead travel to various locations for their job. For example, IDOT workers will travel all over to make repairs to potholes or work on busy highways or construction areas. When you are a traveling employee, almost any injury that you receive should be covered by Illinois workers compensation laws. This includes being covered while you are hurt in a car accident while traveling to or from a job site. You also would get benefits for falls or being hurt while picking up lunch or almost any other reasonable activity that happens during the work day.

And while prison workers have been given bad press, the reality is that they work in highly dangerous jobs. IDOC employees deserve respect and work comp coverage for everything that happens to them on the job. We have helped hundreds of prison guards and other Illinois Department of Corrections workers at Menard, Pinckneyville, Western Illinois, Big Muddy River, Graham, Southwestern Illinois, Vandalia and other prison facilities. With most places under video surveillance and there often being witnesses, winning cases is actually easier than ever as long as you have a lawyer in your corner who knows what they are doing and does the work needed to win.

We have helped just about every State of Illinois employee imaginable with work injuries over the last 30 years. This includes nurses, scientists, IT workers, counselors, secretaries, and even other lawyers. And of course we have helped hundreds of IDOT and IDOC workers. And we would love to help you! We promise to give you the same effort and guidance we would give to a friend or family member. Please contact us any time for a free case review.

FAQ’s For State Of Illinois Injured Workers

• What do I do if my benefits are wrongly delayed or denied? This is where an aggressive attorney comes in. Your lawyer should immediately file a 19(b) petition for immediate hearing and put pressure on the State to do the right thing or go to trial if they will not. This is the only reasonable solution and requires a lawyer with a track record of taking Illinois work comp cases to trial.
• If I was a traveling employee and get hit by a car, can you help with that too? Yes. In that case, you would have two cases. Both workers compensation and personal injury. We recommend great firms who can handle both cases. This will likely put more money in your pocket at the end of the case and give you better communication and customer service.
• What is my case worth? This is something that can only be answered when we know what your injury is and what your ultimate outcome will be. The more serious the injury and the higher your wages, the more it is worth. We have had many cases for State workers that resulted in six figure payments at the end of the case, but every case is different.
• I hired a law firm, but they are slow to respond. Will it cost anything to switch? It does not cost anything as attorney fees are capped at 20% and do not increase if you change firms.
• How do I get the video of my accident? If the State won’t voluntarily turn it over, your attorney can subpoena it.

Please contact us any time at 800-517-1614 if you want to discuss your case. We help injured workers everywhere in Illinois.