Illinois: Exclusive Remedy Barred Case In Spite of Fact That Worker Contracted Mesothelioma After Statute of Limitations Had Run

The exclusive remedy provisions of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act and the Illinois Workers’ Occupational Diseases Act (collectively “the Acts”) bar an employee’s cause of action (and that of his or her estate) against an employer to recover damages for a disease resulting from asbestos exposure that arose from the employment even though no compensation was ever available under the Acts since the employee’s injury or disease did not manifest until after the expiration of the applicable statutes of limitations, held a divided Supreme Court of Illinois. With its decision, the divided Court reversed a decision by a lower appellate court. The majority of the Supreme Court indicated that the employee’s exclusive remedy for workplace injuries was inside the Acts in spite of limitations on the amount and type of recovery allowed thereunder.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Folta v. Ferro Eng’g, 2015 IL 118070, 2015 Ill. LEXIS 1264 (Nov. 4, 2015) [2015 IL 118070, 2015 Ill. LEXIS 1264 (Nov. 4, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 100.05 [100.05]

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see http://www.workcompwriter.com/widow-of-illinois-mesothelioma-victim-finds-herself-in-catch22/

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.