Keefe, Campbell & Associates, LLC

Editor’s comment: Effective today, March 1, 2010, John Wilson has moved to our firm and will take up the defense of Illinois general liability, employment law and workers’ comp claims. He has been a licensed Illinois lawyer since 1978 and had experience putting bad guys into jail when working for the States’ Attorney’s office. We will start to publish his phone numbers shortly—email is jwilson@keefe-law.com.

We wish him well in his hard work with our firm.

Please note

1. The mileage rate for IME’s has been lowered to $.50 per mile. This number is effective until June 30, 2010. FYI, we don’t recommend anyone pay mileage for normal medical care or to get to a light duty job—the Illinois Act and Rules don’t provide it and we don’t feel it is owed.
2. The Commission is holding open houses for anyone interested on February 11 and April 6 from 9-12am. We applaud the Chairman and her staff for opening this administrative process to the public.
3. We recently learned that the Commission PPD/TTD maximum rates have remained the same, despite a drop in the State Average Weekly Wage. We could have guessed that the powers that be at the Commission would never allow a reduction in rates, even though such a decrease is entirely appropriate where the statewide average was depressed due to hard economic times.
4. The Commission had a wonderful worker leave the Collinsville hearing site at the end of last year. Her job is now open and the Commission’s news on their website indicates they are trying to fill the job. Your editor will personally donate $100 to Haiti earthquake relief in the name of anyone who can find that job listed on the Central Management Services website. We remain chagrined about how state WC jobs are seemingly hidden from the public to allow someone’s cousin’s brother’s uncle to quietly learn which rock to look under when they want to take applications only from a chosen few.

The world wasn’t safe while the legislature was in session. Our “liberal” Democratic House, Senate and Governor drop lots more regulations on us. Though 2009 was dominated by a state budget crisis that continues to have multi-billion dollar deficits, and they have not really addressed ethics reform in government, lawmakers approved hundreds of other new laws for Illinois’ citizens to adapt to. Most of them take effect at the midnight on Thursday when the New Year starts. Some legislative changes will hit drivers and others directly, but others are more obscure.

Lawmakers’ bent on keeping people from texting while driving enacted a law this year and it takes hold Thursday at midnight. Drivers caught emailing, “tweeting” or texting behind the wheel can be pulled over and ticketed for the offense. Please assume if an Illinois police officer now wants to stop anyone, they will be able to claim they thought you were texting or emailing.

“Bluetooth” or hands-free devices may be much more popular in Illinois. In addition to not texting, drivers can now be ticketed for talking on the phone without a hands-free device in a school or construction zone starting Jan. 1. The best way to avoid this is to find a way to talk without putting the phone to your ear.

A separate law increases the fine of speeding in a school zone by $5 and sends the extra money to help schools. The fine for not yielding to a pedestrian in a school zone goes up $50.

Trucking companies traveling in or through Illinois will be happy to hear semi-tractor-trailer trucks will now be able to go 65 mph on rural interstates Jan. 1 because of a change in law. However, it will take time for the state to take down the signs that continue to hold truckers to 55 mph.

As part of the state’s plans to help out Illinois’ road builders and the struggling construction industry and build more roads and bridges, the cost of registering a car goes up $20 in 2010. Therefore, a new license plate sticker will cost $99 instead of $79. We have already gotten January renewal bills with the higher cost.

For you outdoorsy types, the cost of hunting and fishing will go up to in an effort to help the state’s cash-strapped outdoors programs. On Jan. 1, the cost of a fishing license goes from $12.50 to $14.50. A deer permit goes from $15 to $25 and hunting license fees rise from $7 to $12.

New laws that we didn’t truly need include naming Feb. 5 Adlai Stevenson Day in Illinois. Adlai Stevenson was Governor of Illinois in the 1950s, unsuccessfully ran for President against Ike and later served as a United Nations Ambassador. The day honoring him won’t get people off of work but official state calendars will note the day.

And last but not least, starting on Friday morning, American flags flying on public property in Illinois, such as outside government buildings, will have to be made in America. No more “Made in China” U.S. flags. A company in Rock Island, Regalia Manufacturing Co. makes American flags. You can buy an unlimited number of Illinois-made U.S. flags, banners or other “regalia” by contacting them online at http://regaliamfg.com/. U.S. flags don’t have to be replaced immediately but after the old ones wear out, new ones have to be made in the U.S.

Now, let’s hope they can make sense of that budget thing. Please send your thoughts and comments.

Running a government isn’t a tough thing to do. You collect taxes and fees and spend what you bring in. All of it presumes you are wisely spending the tax money you are getting. At present, we are watching the wasteful Democratic administrations in the City of Chicago, County of Cook and State of Illinois struggling to find ways to pay for their institutional waste; including wildly inefficient, incompetent and ineffective workers’’ comp defense programs. Now it would appear they are attacking hospitals to try to make up their deficits.

Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported four hospital CEOs from South Suburban, Ingalls Memorial, St. James and Little Company of Mary Hospitals voiced their opposition to a proposed Cook County tax seeking to charge all hospitals in the county a fee if they fail to meet county-mandated criteria for charity care – the equivalent of 4.5 percent of their annual expenses. Few Cook County taxpayers want to steer more money to a county government that recently dished $14,000 to a sheriff’s employee who claimed a back injury twice after reaching to pick up a piece of toilet paper. In 2008, the county paid a whopping $69 million in litigation-related expenses, according to a report.

Because the majority of hospitals are exempt from paying property and income taxes and certain state and local sales taxes, they are expected to provide a commensurate level of free care to indigent patients. Although there’s no question hospitals are providing millions of dollars in free care every year, some of the larger ones that can absorb low-income patients are not meeting the burden as much as they should, claim county officials. And the same officials claim larger, wealthier hospitals are dumping uninsured patients on the already cash-strapped Stroger, Provident and Oak Forest hospitals that are run by the county.

The Hospital CEO’s say the last thing Cook County government needs is a new revenue stream when it can’t control its budget now. Costs are out of control. Represented by the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council, the hospitals oppose the new proposed fee. The four CEOs said they also oppose such fees on their larger health-care counterparts because eventually smaller providers would be hit, too. Hardest hit under this proposal would be the Advocate Health Care Network, which provided in 2008 the equivalent of only 1.4 percent of annual expenses toward charity care – even with half of its bad debt included in the charity care figures.

If enacted, the tax could cost as much as $350 million annually for hospitals in Cook County, according to the hospital group. And the last thing Cook County needs is more revenue, it said. Travis Akin, executive director of Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch, compiled a report showing the rising litigation-related expenses in Cook County, which are 738 times higher than in DuPage County, even though Cook has six times as many people as DuPage.

The Cook County Board’s workers’ compensation committee chairwoman Elizabeth Doody Gorman claims her hands are tied by state laws. We respond to say balderdash. As we have outlined, Cook County doesn’t do any of the things other companies do to cut costs, like hand-written or tape-recorded accident reports and surveillance to catch its employees when they are abusing the system. The City of Chicago refuses to implement light work to make their employees return to work from injuries as soon as possible and get off the dole. Workers’ comp vendors at the Illinois state, county and city level are not competitively and fairly chosen to provide value—you still get the job when someone’s cousin’s brother’s uncle says you do. All three governmental bodies are regularly hit by the IWCC with penalties and attorney’s fees for mismanagement and litigating issues they can’t and shouldn’t fight. The politicians and administrators continue to randomly pick a “whipping boy” as they seek more reasons to justify throwing away taxpayer money.

Well, the Illinois state-wide primaries are a month away, folks. The general election is this fall. Please don’t hesitate to respond with your thoughts and comments.

Editor’s comment: We saw an excellent article in the Daily Herald we want to share with our Illinois readers. If you take a look at it on the web, you will note it has a nice picture of former IWCC Commissioner David Akemann who is running as a judicial candidate in Kane County.

The article points out there are three Kane County judicial candidates in the Feb. 2, 2010 primary who say they’re limiting or refusing campaign contributions from other attorneys to avoid the appearance of bias in the courtroom, if they win. The rest of their competitors say the move is a publicity stunt, and is reflective of the candidates’ insecurities about making impartial decisions.

The debate ensued after Republican David Akemann and Democrat John Dalton issued news releases pledging to forego attorney donations out of ethical concerns. At issue is whether a campaign contribution could present a conflict of interest or the appearance of one at least if the donor-attorney later argues a case in front of the candidate.

We are telling everyone who will listen we consider impossible for someone to take a campaign donation of $1,000 to $100,000 from a law firm and then be unbiased if the lawyers from that firm later appear before the candidate. We will always remember the debate that raged in the Illinois Supreme Court election between Gordon Maag and Lloyd Karmeier with literally millions coming into Illinois from outside the state. When Justice Karmeier won, he later appeared at oral argument and participated on a majority that tossed out a multi-billion dollar ruling on behalf of the tobacco companies. His participation stoked criticism from the Illinois Trial Lawyers Ass’n until someone pointed out Justice Karmeier’s opponent also took literally millions from the Plaintiff bar.

We would point everyone to comedian Robin Williams current comedy special on HBO—he suggests judges and politicians be decked out like NASCAR drivers with the names of their sponsors on their robes, jackets, shoes and outerwear. If they did so, it might make it easier to understand their decision-making processes.

The problem we have with the judicial candidates in Kane and Will and DuPage and Grundy and every other Illinois county who sanctimoniously contend they are certain to be unbiased is to have them ask attorneys from other parts of the state how they feel when they wander into a courtroom with a local veteran attorney who not only knows the judge but actively contributed to his/her campaigns. Under Illinois’ current ethical canons, the existence or amount of the campaign contribution to a judicial candidate does not have to be disclosed at all.

There is one other factor we want all of you to understand. Defense attorneys aren’t on a level playing field in making campaign donations to judges and justices. We sporadically appear before numerous judges in lots of venues. There is and will always be an imbalance when you compare that sort of legal practice with a Plaintiff attorney who lives and practices law in a smaller county with a few judges. It is much, much easier for such an attorney to wisely sprinkle the local infield during each election with cash to insure the judges and justices remember him/her when they walk into a courtroom. It isn’t unethical, yet. But we are starting to see the more enlightened members of the bar notice it is truly tantamount to legal “bribery” because if the judicial candidate doesn’t use the money, he/she can pay the taxes and keep it.

We appreciate your thoughts and comments. We also hope the local WC community in Kane County steps up to support our WC alumnus in David Akemann.

Editor’s comment: LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation Law Center elected us to their Top 25 Blogs for Workers’ Compensation and Workplace Issues.

We are pleased to announce KC&A’s Workers’ Compensation & Employment Law Blog has been selected as a LexisNexis Top 25 Blogs for Workers’ Compensation and Workplace Issues – 2009, in the Best Blogs to Watch category. Selections were made by the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation Law Center staff using feedback from community members and Larson’s National Workers’ Compensation Advisory Board members.

The Top 25 Blogs contain some of the best writing out there on workers’ compensation and workplace issues in general. They contain a wealth of information for the workers’ compensation community with timely news items, practical information, expert analysis, practice tips, frequent postings, and helpful links to other sites. These blog sites also show us how workplace issues interact with politics and culture. Moreover, they demonstrate how bloggers can impact the world of workers’ compensation and workplace issues.

You can read the full announcement and list of honorees at

http://law.lexisnexis.com/practiceareas/Workers-Compensation-Law-Blog/Workers-Compensation/LexisNexis-Top-25-Blogs-for-Workers-Compensation-and-Workplace-Issues—2009-Honorees

If you are looking for any article previously written in this update, or just want to browse through a host of insightful articles dealing with our Illinois Comp system, stop on over to www.keefe-law.com/blog and take a look. Our currently archived articles date back to August 2008.

Editor’s comment: As we await word on whether our current Gov will be indicted, we note with cautious optimism the rising tide of reform coming from our Illinois State Chamber of Commerce. The current president, Doug Whitley has thrown his hat into the political ring and will be seeing if the grass-roots support is there for him to run as a reform candidate for Governor of Illinois in the fall of 2010. We truly feel Doug is honest, hard-working and as knowledgeable about Illinois state government as any human on this planet. He has lived a career devoted to improving the lot of Illinois business in a state that has some times appears driven to torture and punish business at every turn. We are confident Doug’s campaign will center on jobs, good jobs and more jobs for Illinois citizens.

Doug and his supporters are forming an exploratory committee to test the water for a run at the Governorship. Many of our readers have been encouraging about such a candidacy in the past and Doug hopes you will be again as he moves forward with this tremendous undertaking. Doug will be a great champion of WC changes and Commission revisions and is hopeful our readers will use your networks, outreach and communications tools to help recruit critically important campaign seed funding. The immediate goal is 100 business and/or individuals giving $10K each. Unlike the federal elections there are no limits to state and local candidates and the corporate/business funds are welcome. We are going to send our initial donation this week and encourage all of our readers to consider doing so now and not later.

This weekend Doug expects to exceed the financial threshold for forming a political committee and filing with the state board of elections the committee “Whitley for Illinois”. The committee’s P.O. Box is 156, Batavia, Illinois 60510 and is open for business. After receiving the blessing of the Chamber’s Board of Directors last week, organizing matters have moved quickly this week. Doug and his staff expect to open a bank account, file with the state board of elections and launch a web site.

If you did not note the September 9 President’s Message announcing the move it is accessible from the chamber web site http://www.ilchamber.org/ under E Publications, President’s Archive.

Editor’s comment: Matt Wrigley, our intrepid associate reports the following:

1)  The new arbitration decision forms will contain a box in the upper right hand corner on the front page containing smaller boxes to be checked by the State’s data entry people re: whether case involves Injured Workers’ Benefit Fund, Rate Adjustment fund, Second Injury Fund, or none of the above. The proposed findings must include this decision form or they will not be accepted.

2)  Arb. Paula Gomora is running for judge in Will County. Arb. Gomora is a veteran and solid jurist. Please donate—her website is http://www.paulagomora.com/home.html

3)  Arb. Maureen Masterson-Pulia is running for judge also. We consider her one of the top legal minds in Illinois. Please donate—her website is http://www.maureenforjudge.com/

4)  No word on reversion to the 3-month status cycle.

5)  There is a possible big change brewing in our practice–we may soon have uniformity among all arbitrators as to whether submission of fee schedule itemization of bills will be required prior to arbitration.

6)  To obtain Petitioner’s (or any witness) criminal history you may issue a subpoena to the following address:

Keeper of the Records

Illinois State Police

Department of Forensic Services and Identification

ATTN: Thomas Bud Loverude

260 N. Chicago Street

Joliet, IL  60431

For questions, thoughts or comments about the CBA Workers’ Compensation Section meetings, reply to mwrigley@keefe-law.com.