Illinois: Medical Care Providers May Not Reach Workers’ Compensation Settlement Proceeds

Enactment by the Illinois Legislature of the 2005 amendments to the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act, specifically 820 ILCS 305/8, and the enactment of a new section 8.2 did not alter the important underlying policy in Illinois — that workers’ compensation benefits are beyond the reach of creditors. Accordingly, responding to a question certified to it by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the proceeds of a workers’ compensation settlement remain exempt from the claims of medical care providers who treated the illness or injury associated with that settlement.

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 In re Hernandez, 2020 IL 124661, 2020 Ill. LEXIS 5 (Jan. 24, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 89.09.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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