Worker Recovers Lost Wages and 4-Yr College Degree
In September of 1998 while returning company tools to Joliet from another jobsite in the City of Naperville, an apprentice electrician was involved in an automobile accident. His totaled car was an abrupt lesson in what can go wrong within an otherwise normal work routine, but his career-ending injuries would prove much more difficult to overcome.
The arbitrator acknowledged the loss of earning potential had he been able to complete his requirements and obtain his journeyman’s license.
As insult often follows injury, his employer’s workers’ compensation provider had gone bankrupt and no new coverage had been obtained. Furthermore, despite documented pay for travel time to pick up and return tools between the two sites, his employer denied the accident occurred in the course of his employment. His case hinged on proving such a relationship, which would afford him benefits under the Illinois Worker’s Compensation Act.
Seven years later, before an arbitrator for the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission last April, witnesses for the Respondent, US Electric, testified that the electrician was on his way home at the time of the accident and not conducting work-related activities, therefore, not due benefits for lost pay and disability, necessary medical care, or job training to support his young family. The electrician’s attorney, Mitch Horwitz, who oversees the Workers’ Compensation department for the law firm, Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates, Ltd, produced evidence to the contrary.
Central to this case was a work order authorization for equipment, which both the Petitioner (the electrician) and a witness for US Electric, the Petitioner’s foreman, claimed the handwriting as their own.
Handwriting samples produced by Horwitz proved the testimony of the foreman dishonest. The foreman’s perjured testimony revealed an attempt to conceal the fact that the City of Naperville had been wrongly charged for time in which the foreman had claimed that he had been fulfilling the duties being carried out, in fact, by the electrician – the picking up and returning of tools from Joliet, as well as billing for two hours on the jobsite daily, which was also a fabrication.
As the Respondent’s case continued to unravel in the wake of other distortions, so too did their reasoning for denial of benefits for extensive medical treatment received, including eventual lumbar surgery, spinal fusion, and the implementation of a spinal cord stimulator for pain control. Years of medical documentation provided by Horwitz clearly outlined the petitioner’s declining health, inability to work in his chosen trade and unbearable pain, all of which were attributed to the accident by treating physicians and surgeons on countless occasions.
The arbitrator agreed with the evidence and awarded retroactive disability pay and medical expenses, totaling over $282,000 (minus $50,000 paid by his auto insurance), but there was more to consider.
Key to the overall ruling of the arbitrator was the sincere attempts of the electrician to return to work as an electrician despite painful consequences. When disability and necessary surgeries rendered him incapable of fulfilling his goal to complete the hours necessary to earn his journeyman’s license, he chose to pursue a college degree and become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
The arbitrator acknowledged the loss of earning potential had he been able to complete his requirements and obtain his journeyman’s license.
Absent any adequate offering or recommendation by the Respondent regarding rehabilitative job training, the arbitrator issued a rare, but just decision that would allow for potential earnings equal that of lost wages as a journeyman electrician.
The injured worker had enlisted the help of a comprehensive vocational rehabilitation program on his own. Supported by college transcripts that reinforced his ability and desire to obtain his bachelor’s degree and pursue a new career as a CPA, the arbitrator agreed with the rehabilitation coordinator and ordered payment by the Respondent of all costs involved with the electrician’s four-year college education and CPA licensing, including the costs of his coordinator’s services through the completion of this endeavor. Accrued college expenses as of 6/06 exceeded $27,000.
“Forcing our client into a sedentary, low-paying job with payment of a wage differential was ‘penny wise and pound foolish” according to the arbitrator” Horwitz stated, adding, “We’re very happy that the arbitrator recognized the years of unjust circumstances and treatment of our client, and also gave him the opportunity to create a new and rewarding career.”
Cliff Horwitz welcomes your comments on this article and can be reached at (866) 228-5016, or by visiting http://www.horwitzlaw.com.