Personal Injury Law

: Missouri Injury Law Blog

Illinois Worker's Compensation Case - Oil Rigger "Roughneck" Faces Amputation of Right Foot after Drill Collar Fell and Injured his Leg - Value of an Amputated Foot Under Illinois Work Comp Statutes

By Benjamin J. Sansone, Esq. (all)

A client of mine who has had various adventurous and dangerous jobs took a job working for an oil drilling company doing the heavy lifting and work with the drilling rig. Unfortunalty he was severely injured as a result of a 2-3 ton drill collar falling and crushing his foot and injuring his right leg. He is now looking at having his right foot amputated as a result of this work related accident and injury.

My client was hired in Illinois and is an Illinois resident, therefore, most likely Illinois worker's compensation law will apply to this case, despite the fact that the injury occurred outside of Illinois. This is important because Illinois has more favorable workers' compensation laws than most other states. So keeping his work comp case in Illinois is a high priority for me.

The lose of a limb, if only one limb, is what is referred to in Illinois work comp law as 'permanent partial disability" because the injured employee is not permanently disabled but only partially. If both feet, or both hands, were lost then it becomes a permanent total disability as the likelihood is that the employee will not be able to work again.

How is PPD (Permanent Partial Disability) defined in Illinois Work Comp Law:

PPD is:
a) The complete or partial loss of a part of the body; or
b) The complete or partial loss of use of a part of the body; or
c) The partial loss of use of the body as a whole.

?Loss of use? is not specifically defined in the law, but it generally means the employee is unable to do things he or she was able to do before the injury.

See Handbook on Illinois Worker's Compensation and Occupational Disease

The employee's benefit is calculated using the Illinois Work Comp disability chart indicating how many weeks of pay an injured employee gets for an injury.

If a body part is amputated or if it cannot be used at all, that represents a 100% loss, and the employee is awarded the entire number of weeks listed on the chart. If the employee sustains partial loss the benefit is calculated by multiplying the percentage of loss by the number of weeks listed.

HOW MUCH IS THE AMPUTATION WORTH:

Amputation or enucleation: 133 1/3% of Statewide Average Weekly Wage (SAWW). Currently the illinois SAWW is about $1,000. The minimum PPD benefit for amputation is 50% of the statewide average weekly wage (SAWW). The dispute comes in as to how much of a disability of the body as a whole, i.e. what percentage, should be attributed for the loss of a foot. That percentage is applied to 500 weeks, to get the number of weeks times the applicable weekly wage to get the amount.

Full post as published by Missouri Injury Law Blog on April 01, 2008 (boomark / email).