How and When Would A Case Settle?

The majority of cases are eligible for settlement when an injured employee is done treating with a doctor and discharged back to work status. At that point, with those type of injuries where somebody is recovered to the extent that they can go back and perform the duties which they were doing prior to the injury, medical records are subpoenaed by your doctor, evaluated for the basis of your disability, and a demand is sent by the law firm to the insurance company or their attorneys with an evaluation of the value of the case. The case is valued, in those situations, by two factors. The first factor they use is sixty percent of your gross pay per week is multiplied by your percentage of disability to the body part that you injured. There’s a chart made by the state of Illinois, which lists every body part, and based upon the extent of your injury, there’s a certain number of weeks which are associated with that type of injury. So the mathematical formula is sixty percent of your gross pay per week multiplied by the number of weeks of disability as stated in the chart equals your settlement. And those type of cases settle relatively easy because the judge, or in this case arbitrator which is hearing your case, doesn’t have a lot of leeway either way if the injury is not disputed, if the extent of the injury is not disputed. Other factors that come into play on when a case should be settled is if somebody is injured, can’t go back to their full-duty position, has certain impairments which are permanent in nature which precludes them from going back to that job, but in which they can do other duties, or of course if somebody has such a severe injury that they’re unable to go back into the work force and work in any capacity and those we’ll discuss later.