Illinois: General Contractor May Not Take Advantage of Settlement Agreement It Did Not Sign

Where a worker settled his workers’ compensation claim and signed a settlement agreement that released his direct employer and a purported general contractor from liability for any claims arising out of the worker’s work-related accident, the worker could nevertheless pursue a civil action against the purported contractor where (a) the settlement agreement indicated that all issues, including the worker’s employment status, were in dispute, (b) the worker’s employer instructed its attorney to include not only the employer, but the general contractor, in the release language of the settlement agreement, and (c) no one signed the settlement agreement on behalf of the purported general contractor. The court reasoned that no workers’ compensation claim had been filed against the contractor and nothing in the record indicated any employment relationship existed between the worker and the contractor.

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.

See Marquez v. Martorina Family, LLC, 2016 IL App (1st) 153233, 2016 Ill. App. LEXIS 372 (June 17, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 132.05.

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