What if my work injury was my fault?

Stephen D. Phillips: He explains comparative negligence: fault is divided between the injured person and others, and damages are reduced by the injured person’s share.

Attorney Stephen D. Phillips · Workers’ Compensation · 42-second answer

Transcript

Automatically transcribed from the video’s audio and lightly edited.

If a work injury you believe is your fault, what we can do is look at the facts and determine how much fault your conduct played and how much fault another person’s conduct played. In Illinois, we have what’s called comparative negligence, and you take 100% of the fault and you divide up how much was caused by the plaintiff and how much was caused by others. And the amount of damages is reduced by how much is caused by the injured person.

Note: Workers’ compensation itself is not fault-based. The comparative-fault rule he describes applies to a separate injury lawsuit against a third party, where an injured person is barred only if more than 50% at fault (735 ILCS 5/2-1116).

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