If you have been hurt while performing the duties of your job, you may be eligible to file a claim for workers’ compensation benefits, provided that you first report your work injury.
How long do you have to report a work injury? In Illinois, you must notify a boss, a foreman, or some other person acting in a supervisory capacity within 45 days of your work injury. Failure to properly report your work injury within this 45-day window can result in your case being disputed and denied by your employer, and any benefits to which you may otherwise have been entitled could be lost forever.
Please note that there may be exceptions to this window, particularly in cases in which you are injured not in one single accident, but rather by repetitive trauma over time. In this scenario, the date of the injury would be the point in time that a reasonable person would have become aware of the causal relationship between the fact of the injury and his or her employment. You would, therefore, have 45 days from that date to report your work injury.
However, just because you have 45 days to report your injury does not mean that you should wait that long to do so. Ideally, you should report any accident that occurs at work the very same day that it happens. The longer you wait to report an accident or injury, the easier it may be for your employer to dispute or deny your workers’ compensation claim.
How Can I Ensure I Have a Valid Workers’ Compensation Claim?
As you can see, reporting your work injury in a timely fashion is a core requirement for establishing a valid workers’ compensation claim. If you allow too much time to elapse without notifying your employer, you may not be forever barred from receiving the workers’ compensation benefits you deserve.
How else can you ensure that you have a valid workers’ compensation claim? It may help to enlist the services of an experienced attorney, like the Chicago workers’ compensation attorneys at GWC Injury Lawyers.
To schedule a zero-cost, zero-obligation consultation with Illinois’ largest Workers Compensation and Personal Injury law firm, please call GWC 24/7 at (312) 464-1234 or click here to chat with one of our representatives.
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