In the best-case scenario, a worker who suffers a job-related injury notifies their employer and files their workers’ compensation claim. The claim is then approved and the employee is allowed to take the time needed to recover from their injury, receiving their weekly benefits and having their medical expenses covered 100 percent by their employer. Unfortunately, as an Illinois workers’ compensation lawyer can attest, this process rarely goes that smoothly. This is often due to the fact that employers and insurance companies do all they can to deny injured employees the benefits they are entitled to under Illinois law.
Denying Claims Based on Surveillance
Workers’ compensation insurance companies are notorious for denying legitimate job injury claims so they can protect their profits. They will do all they can to “prove” that the worker is not really injured. They often insist that an injured worker be examined by a doctor on their payroll who may downplay the actual diagnosis the injured worker has been given by their own physicians.
Another common way that insurance companies try to prove a worker is faking or playing up their injury is by putting the worker under surveillance to try to catch the worker engaging in some kind of activity they are not supposed to be able to because of their injuries.
...