Dismissed workers’ comp arbitrator presses disability claim

An Illinois state employee “was dismissed in 2011 from her $115,000 per year job as an arbitrator for the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission after a series of stories in the News-Democrat concerning more than $10 million paid to prison guards who complained that turning keys and operating locks caused them to be injured.” The investigation indicated that the arbitrator tried to hide from the press a disability application by a former state trooper convicted of causing highway deaths, and allegedly used her position in an unsuccessful attempt to pressure state officials to speed up her own claim, commenting that she had ‘two mortgages’ to pay.” After her departure from the arbitrator job she “found work training others for the very job from which she was fired,” and now is endeavoring to collect a “pending $25,000 settlement for a disability primarily attributed to typing,” which the state is resisting. [Belleville, Ill., News-Democrat]

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