Musculoskeletal Disorders

Chicago Lawyers for Musculoskeletal Disorder Claims

Musculoskeletal disorders are those injuries that impact how your body moves or your musculoskeletal system. Disorders include repetitive stress conditions like tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. For example, if you are a secretary for the City of Chicago, you could suffer carpal tunnel syndrome due to long periods of typing. You may be able to file a claim for benefits. This claim will be filed directly with the City, which has been approved to be self-insured by the state. As a city worker, you might assume that it will be easier to recover benefits from the City than it would be from a private insurer. Unfortunately that’s not the case. The City can make it difficult to get benefits you need, and it has significant resources. You should be on equal footing when you seek benefits. Give the seasoned Chicago workers’ compensation attorneys of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca a call to determine whether you have a viable claim and to represent you. We have more than 60 years of experience advocating for best results for workers.

Musculoskeletal Disorders

Musculoskeletal disorders are common and expensive to treat across the country. In fact, they’re responsible for a significant chunk of workers’ compensation costs. However, these economic and human costs are typically not truly necessary as the disorders are preventable. The City can put in place systems to improve protection for its workers’ movement, muscles, tendons, nerves, ligaments, discs, and more. When exposed to risk factors for these disorders, workers fatigue and may develop musculoskeletal imbalance. Unfortunately, accidents occur on the job, and the consequences for the injured worker can be significant.

Musculoskeletal disorders include tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendon strain, muscle strain, ligament sprain, epicondylitis, tension neck syndrome, rotator cuff tendonitis, digital neuritis, trigger finger, DeQuervain’s syndrome, mechanical back syndrome, ruptured or herniated disc, or degenerative disc disease as a result of work-related activities, you should hold the city accountable through a workers’ compensation claim.

Workers’ Compensation Benefits

Workers’ compensation benefits are no-fault benefits. That means you should be able to obtain benefits regardless of whether the City’s negligence caused your work injuries. This can be a crucial way in which workers’ compensation claims make it easier for workers to get the financial assistance they need after getting injured on the job, since it’s common for several risk factors to lead to musculoskeletal disorders, as opposed to a single acute cause. Factors can be a direct result of the work, or they can be individual-related, but so long as the activities are the result of the job or occur on the job, you should be able to obtain benefits for them.

Workers’ compensation benefits can include reasonable and necessary medical care in the form of medical benefits, partial wage replacement in the form of disability benefits, and vocational rehabilitation. In some cases, a musculoskeletal disorder is minor and requires rest and medication. In others, the injuries are more grievous and may require expensive treatments, such as surgery. The critical question when trying to have the City pay those benefits is whether the care is reasonable and necessary.

Third Party Lawsuit

In some cases, musculoskeletal disorders are the result of a third party’s actions. While workers’ compensation claims can result in no-fault benefits, these benefits are limited to only a portion of wage replacement and other economic losses. You will need to bear the noneconomic losses without any sort of compensation. A third party lawsuit allows you to hold a non-employer responsible for noneconomic losses like pain and suffering. Our attorneys will need to prove fault; typically that requires us to demonstrate a defendant’s negligence caused your musculoskeletal disorder.

Consult a Seasoned Chicago Vehicle Accident Lawyer

If you suffered a musculoskeletal disorder while working for the City of Chicago, you should give our Chicago workers’ compensation lawyers a call. We represent workers in Aurora, Champaign, Rockford, Quincy, as well as Sangamon, Winnebago, Kane, Cook, and Adams Counties. In addition to workers’ compensation claims, we also handle third party lawsuits and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims, so we have you covered for legal representation. Call us at 312-724-5846 or complete our online form.