A good lawyer for work injuries in Illinois wants to get their client the most money possible for two reasons. One is that it?s the right thing to do. Two is that selfishly, the more we get for you, the more we get for us.
Despite the fact that most lawyers would want more in their pocket, I?ve seen a couple of cases where attorneys (in this case it was two separate Chicago workers comp law firms) left money on the table that could have easily increased the value of the case. They didn?t get their client?s overtime pay included in the average weekly wage (AWW) calculation.
An AWW is the baseline for figuring out how much a worker will get paid for their time off work (TTD) and settlement (PPD). You typically look at what they earned over the last 52 weeks, but it?s not always that simple. Sometimes a worker didn?t work a full 52 weeks. Other times they have a second job. And still other times they work overtime.
If you work overtime and it is required by your employer that you do so, those additional hours should be included at the straight time rate in determining your AWW. For example, let?s say you work 50 hours in a week at $10 an hour. Without overtime your average wage would be $400, with it, it would be $500 a week. Over one year that could be a difference of over $3,000 in your pocket. If you received 100 weeks of PPD benefits, it could be $6,000 more for the settlement.
This is clearly a lot of money and in some cases getting overtime included could be the difference of tens of thousands of dollars.
It?s important that you let your lawyer know how much you were working or have them obtain a wage statement. Better yet, if you?ve saved your check stubs, make sure that they have them. Insurance companies make money by limiting the amount of money that they pay out on a case. In other words, they aren?t likely to include your overtime pay without some prodding.
In one particularly shoddy case of lawyering, a caller to my office told me that the lawyer they had hired wouldn?t try to get him overtime pay because he didn?t want to ?rock the boat.? What a joke. The lawyer was more worried about what the insurance company thought than about doing right by their client. The reality is that they probably didn?t know the law or want to put forth the effort to succeed, not that it would have required much work.
If you work mandatory overtime and aren?t getting paid work comp based on the full amount you worked, raise a fuss. You aren?t trying to get any more that you are entitled to under the law and you shouldn?t have to settle for any less either.
We are workers' compensation attorneys who help people with Illinois work injuries anywhere in IL via our statewide network of attorneys. Contact us and we will answer your questions or find the right lawyer for your situation.
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