A northwestern Indiana man alleges in a federal lawsuit that he suffered a traumatic brain injury when a police officer ran a red light and struck his vehicle in 2016. Carlos Gallegos-Esqueda of Hammond is suing the Lake County Sheriff’s Department and others for damages. He alleges that Lake County Sheriff’s Officer Anibal Ramos’ actions in the June 2016 crash…
While truckers are winning misclassification suits on the West Coast, the fate of similar lawsuits elsewhere in the country is less predictable. The Seventh Circuit court of appeals in Chicago recently dismissed a class action lawsuit that claimed a trucking company misclassified drivers as independent contractors. On Nov. 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed…
The Illinois Legislature has overturned the veto of a bill by Gov. Bruce Rauner that amends the state’s workers compensation law to allow medical providers to sue insurers over interest stemming from unpaid bills, among other changes hammered out in last-minute compromises. Gov. Rauner vetoed S.B. 904 in August, but the Senate on Nov. 14 voted 55-1 to overturn his…
The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services has released its bi-annual analysis of workers’ compensation premiums across the country and it is good news for Illinois. For several years our high ranking in the Oregon Premium Rate Survey – which ranks states based on how much employers pay for workers’ comp insurance -has been used by the business community…
A report from Oregon shows that workers’ compensation costs are falling in Illinois, but a manufacturing group said employers here have yet to see any savings. The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association heralded a report this week from the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services that ranked Illinois workers’ compensation costs at the 22nd highest in the nation, down from…
There’s a problem on the road that has people in the bike community raising the alarms: It seems more people are getting hit and killed. Three separate central Indiana bike groups have come together to try to figure out how to fix what appears to be a problem that is not improving. Those groups include Bike Indianapolis, Bicycle Indiana and…
The payments for similar knee and shoulder surgeries performed in ambulatory surgery centers were lower compared with hospital outpatient departments in many study states, according to a study released Thursday by the Workers Compensation Research Institute. Researchers with the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based institute examined payments in 18 states in 2016, finding that in 14 of them payments for knee surgeries done…
Eugene Keefe argues that Senate Bill 904 lurks as an ever-greater disaster waiting to happen in relationship to doctors and hospitals across the state being able to get compensated in a timely manner. “Our concern is SB 904 would further increase litigation and concomitant employer costs in a system where Illinois already has what the Stat-Rats opine is the second…
A state appeals panel says a man won’t get a new trial in his lawsuit against the Hyatt Regency hotel in Chicago, saying a Cook County jury was not wrong in finding him 100 percent responsible for the injuries he says he suffered when he tripped and fell over a missing floor tile covered by carpet. In late October, a…
Today the Indiana Department of Labor released the state’s results from the 2017 Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses report, which measures incidents of nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses on an annual basis. Indiana’s nonfatal occupational injury and illness rate remains at the lowest in state history for the second year in a row, with an…
