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An insurer that covered a subcontractor must defend the contractor in the electrocution death of a subcontractor employee, an Illinois federal district court ruled Monday. Columbus, Ohio-based State Auto Property & Casualty Insurance Co. issued an insurance policy to Centralia, Illinois-based Rock Branch Ironworks Inc. for the policy period April 2018 to April 2019, according to the ruling by the…

Indiana had 21 work-related deaths on farms deaths last year, the fewest number of documented cases since 2013, Purdue University announced on Sept. 22. Three of the victims were children under the age of 5, while 11 were 60 or older, Purdue’s Agricultural Safety and Health Program announced. “Every one of these lives mattered to someone. Each one was an…

Employers nationwide are following the legislative push to accept COVID-19 claims by presumption in workers compensation, changes that aren’t necessarily guaranteeing that such infectious disease claims will be greenlighted but instead promise a surge in litigation and confusion, experts say. Given the new laws’ many nuances, employers are “worried about staying on top” of the presumption trend, said Ralph Touch,…

The exclusivity provisions of the Illinois Workers Compensation Act do not bar a worker’s claims for statutory damages for violating her rights under a state biometric privacy law, an appellate court held Friday. In McDonald v. Symphony Bronzeville Park LLC, the Illinois Court of Appeals, Fifth District unanimously answered that a class of workers could proceed with their claims of…

The Supreme Court of Illinois on Thursday ruled a chef’s knee injury, suffered as he knelt to look for a tray of carrots, was compensable, reversing several earlier court decisions that in part found the injury to not be work-related. In 2014, sous chef Kevin McAllister was working at Chicago’s North Pond restaurant setting up for his shift when another…