Tesla, Inc. is largely known for its self-driving cars and futuristic designs, but workers say there is much more to the story than that. The company has apparently been under-reporting its number of worker injuries for years. Any time that a company misrepresents workplace safety, it paints a misleading picture for current and future Illinois workers who otherwise might have made different employment decisions. Although workers' compensation benefits can help people who have been hurt on the job, many would probably prefer to never be unknowingly put into that position in the first place. Acc ..read more

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating a recent fatal workplace accident in Illinois. If the employer involved in this fatality was violating any OSHA regulations then it will be cited and fined. Those results might not mean all that much to the victim's family members, but temporary death benefits through the workers' compensation system could. The accident involved a 37-year-old man who was working for an engineering company. Although originally hired in 2011, he was later laid off from his position in 2016, and then rehired in 2017. This apparently had nothing to ..read more

Summer might feel like it is a long way away, but those higher temperatures will arrive in Illinois soon enough. Warmer weather might even come as a relief to some. Unfortunately, construction workers might not have the same feelings about summer temperatures. Although conversations about workers' compensation usually revolve around things like physical accidents or repeated motions, heat-related injuries are a real threat to worker safety. There are a number of different illnesses and injuries caused by the heat. These are things like heat stroke, heat rash, heat cramps and heat exhaustion. C ..read more

An animal attack can be a frightening, traumatic event in your life. Perhaps a dog attacked you while you were out walking, running or even taking your own pet for a walk. Dog bites can be serious injuries, and you have the right to learn your legal options after something like this happens. It's possible you could have grounds for a civil claim.  Dog bite victims sometimes assume there is nothing they can do after an attack. In reality, there are steps you may be able to take that will allow you to hold liable parties accountable for what you experienced. After a dog bite, you may want to tak ..read more

Illinois residents rely on the U.S. Postal Service for their mail, but its injured workers could not rely on the USPS for help. Instead of making sure that tens of thousands of people who were hurt while sorting or delivering mail got the workers' compensation they needed, the USPS fired them. The sad reality is that this can and does happen all the time, even in Illinois. Sorting and delivering mail is a physically tasking job. Postal workers are only 20% of workers at the federal level, but in 2019, they accounted for approximately half of the federal worker injuries or illnesses. The Labor ..read more

Being an office worker probably seems like a pretty safe career choice. After all, offices rarely -- if ever -- have large, dangerous machinery. And unlike warehouse or construction workers, bosses usually do not ask their office workers to climb ladders. But none of this means that Illinois offices are safe. In fact, office workers can get hurt and need workers' compensation benefits just like anyone else. People who work in offices have to safely pass over any number of physical hurdles just to get to their desks in the morning. Cords connecting computers, wi-fi routers, printers and more of ..read more

Working in a warehouse is not exactly easy, but online shopping is making things much worse. Illinois warehouse employees are now expected to work alongside robots as they retrieve and package items for customers. Those robots are large, heavy and fast-moving, putting people at risk for serious workplace accidents. Warehouse robots are supposed to take over physically demanding and even mundane work tasks. While this can be helpful, employers tend to increase expectations of their workers after seeing how quickly the robots work. Higher expectations combined with frequent unease of working so ..read more

You know that you need financial help after a workplace accident. Workers' compensation benefits are usually the first step to getting that help, but it might not be your only option. In Illinois, you also have the option to pursue a third-party claim when applicable. Just because an injury happens at work does not mean that it is solely a workplace injury. An accident could partially be the result of another negligent party. In some cases those negligent parties are big companies or manufacturers, while in others they are individual people. One such example is a delivery driver who is struck ..read more

When you hit the road, you likely try your best to mind your own business. You focus on driving, watch out for other vehicles and abide by the rules of the road. Of course, even your most conscientious driving does not mean you are immune to being involved in a car accident. At any time, another Illinois driver could hit your vehicle, and you could suffer severe injuries. Even if the vehicle that hit yours was not traveling at a high rate of speed, you could still suffer injuries that leave you with lasting effects for which you may need to seek compensation. Low-speed accidents are still ..read more

There are a lot of jobs that just seem obviously dangerous, like working in construction or in the manufacturing industry. But there are many more jobs that cause serious injury and even death each and every year. Some of those jobs might not look obviously dangerous from the outside, while others might be too far out of the public's eye to even think about. Ultimately, it does not matter if anyone else thinks any given job is risky when it comes to a surviving family getting workers' compensation for fatal injuries. Although some people in Illinois might think that landscapers only face a sma ..read more