A state appeals panel has ruled Abbott Laboratories and Mead Johnson must continue defending themselves against a rash of lawsuits seeking payouts for marketing and selling baby formula allegedly linked to cases of a condition potentially fatal in infants. Thousands of lawsuits have landed in court over cases of the condition known as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), which results in the…
A state appeals panel voided a $3.5 million verdict awarded to a man who claimed he was hurt while working for Union Pacific because the court determined a Cook County judge wrongly blocked the railroad from telling jurors about the man’s prior conviction for a crime related to dishonesty. Jeffrey Kozik Jr. sued UP in August 2019 over an incident…
Several states have taken steps toward letting injured workers choose their own doctors, a trend experts say can affect costs and outcomes as a key element of medical control shifts away from employers and insurers. H.B. 1069, introduced Dec. 5 in Indiana, would amend state law to require employers after June 30, 2026, to pay for an “attending physician” selected…
Illinois lawmakers have introduced legislation that would expand workers compensation presumptions to cover hospital security guards who develop certain illnesses or medical conditions linked to their jobs. H.B. 4226, introduced Thursday, would amend the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act to add hospital security guards to the list of public-facing safety workers eligible for rebuttable presumptions of compensability. The bill builds on…
Nearly two dozen lawsuits lodged by trial lawyers on behalf of out-of-state plaintiffs seeking to use Cook County’s famously plaintiff-friendly courts to score potentially big judgments against baby formula makers don’t belong in Illinois state court, a state appeals court has ruled. On Dec. 12, a three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court granted a win to pharmaceutical…
Indiana lawmakers are considering legislation that would give injured workers the right to choose their treating physician in workers compensation and occupational disease claims. H.B. 1069, introduced Friday, would amend Indiana law to require employers to pay for an “attending physician” selected by the employee after June 30, 2026, regardless of when the underlying injury or occupational disease occurred. Under…
A group of big medical device and chemical manufacturing companies are pushing back against attempts by trial lawyers to rope them into another big potential payout in the continuing legal actions over claims ethylene oxide emissions from factories and medical device sterilization plants in Lake County caused cancer. In motions and briefs filed in November and early December, the companies…
Illinois’ state government, as well as Chicago and nine North Shore suburbs, could be in line for as much as $280 million under a deal struck with agrichemical giant Monsanto, through its parent company Bayer, to end governmental lawsuits accusing the company of allegedly contaminating water with so-called PCBs. The settlement was announced Dec. 2 by both Illinois Attorney General…
Five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers compensation litigation over the virus continues to move through jurisdictions. Courts are actively revisiting questions of causation, rebuttals of statutory presumptions — many of which have expired — long-COVID determinations, disability and the broader boundaries of occupational disease law. Decisions issued in 2024 and 2025 continue to reshape the system,…
A bipartisan bill newly introduced in Congress aims to “modernize” the federal workers compensation system by allowing physician assistants and nurse practitioners to diagnose, certify and oversee treatment for federal employees injured on the job. The proposal, titled the Improving Access to Workers’ Compensation for Injured Federal Workers Act and introduced Tuesday on the Senate floor, would amend the Federal…
