Illinois: Commission and Trial Court Sometimes Enjoy Concurrent Jurisdiction over Workers’ Compensation Disputes

While workers’ compensation issues generally are to be determined exclusively by the Illinois Industrial Commission under 820 ILCS 305/18, nevertheless, that statutory provision does not divest the circuit court of jurisdiction of all issues involving workers’ compensation, held an Illinois appellate court. In some circumstances, a trial court must determine whether the issue in contention is reserved exclusively for the Commission or whether the circuit court and the Commission hold concurrent jurisdiction. If both the Commission and the circuit court have a claim to concurrent jurisdiction, a court must determine which has paramount jurisdiction.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Illinois Ins. Guar. Fund v. Priority Transp., 2019 IL App (1st) 181454, 2019 Ill. App. LEXIS 851 (Oct. 24, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 124.02.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see