Employer Liability in Illinois After Martin v. Goodrich Corp (Podcast)

In this episode, John Maher speaks with attorney Paul Kelley of Satterley and Kelley about a significant legal shift in Illinois following the Martin v. Goodrich Corp case. Historically, workers with asbestos-related diseases were limited to workers’ compensation, which excluded claims filed more than 25 years after exposure—creating a legal gap for many mesothelioma victims. The recent amendment to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act now permits employees to sue employers directly if the illness arises decades later. Kelley explains how this impacts victims, the legal steps involved, and the importance of prompt legal consultation to preserve rights and seek justice.

John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher, and I’m here today with Paul Kelley. Paul is a partner with the Kentucky personal injury law firm, Satterley and Kelley, which has over 45 years of collective experience in litigating mesothelioma and asbestos claims. Today, we’re talking about employer liability in Illinois after the Martin v. Goodrich Corp case.

Welcome, Paul.

Paul Kelley: Hey, John. How are you doing today?

Have Workers Been Able to Sue Employers Historically?

Maher: I’m doing well, thanks. So Paul, historically, have workers been able to sue their employers for asbestos related diseases in Illinois?

Kelley: No, up until fairly recently, no. Workers have been limited to workers’ compensation claims and they’ve not been able to directly sue their employers for any asbestos-related diseases. They can sue product manufacturers and property owners and other negligent parties. But one of the groups that was excluded from what we call the Illinois tort system, is employers.

And so, folks that might’ve had, to be honest, quite a bit of liability, have been excluded from employees being able to pursue meaningful remedies from them.

Who Would Attorneys Go After in Asbestos Cases?

Maher: So, talk a little bit more about who you would go after and where an employee can get a remedy from if they can’t sue their employer.

Kelley: So, prior to changes in the law, you can always sue product manufacturers. Historically, there have been 3,000 products that have been manufactured with asbestos, beginning of the 1930s and ’40s and continuing into the 2000s.

So, you can always sue product manufacturers. They have a duty to manufacture a safe product, they have duties and so on, so you can always go after entities like them.

There are a whole bunch of parties, certainly, who depending on the circumstances of course, can be sued for negligence. That would include contractors and insulators, and entities that were responsible for construction on a site. In some instances, you can sue property owners for negligently failing to remove asbestos or negligently failing to warn concerning asbestos.

But employers were off limits for the most part, and that’s true in most states. In fact, it’s probably true in every state, that we have a workers’ compensation scheme. And the purpose of the workers’ compensation scheme was to ensure that employees were compensated for work-related injuries and all they had to historically prove was that they were injured at work.

And if there was an injury at work, then the company or the company’s insurance carrier had to pay those people lost wages and medical expenses predominantly, but it was kind of a guaranteed compensation system so that you didn’t have to fight over who’s at fault. If the exposure occurred, if the exposure was caused, then you would get automatic workers’ compensation benefits.

Except there’s one problem, and Illinois is not unique. In Illinois, that right to compensation for asbestos-related injuries within the workers’ compensation scheme cuts off at 25 years from the person’s last exposure. And the problem with that is that in most instances, most people are not diagnosed with this disease until 30 to 50 years after their last exposure to asbestos.

So, the problem was… is that they couldn’t file a tort claim, a lawsuit, because the workers’ compensation statutes were interpreted that you can’t do that because your exclusive remedy, it’s what they call it, is within the state Workers’ Compensation Act and that scheme. But if your disease did not accrue or manifest until more than 25 years after your last exposure, you couldn’t pursue a case under the Workers’ Compensation Act either. So, therefore, people with mesothelioma may be left without a remedy.

And I know I talked a little bit about all the parties that you could sue. Well, sometimes you can’t for factual reasons. Sometimes the manufacturers aren’t viable anymore for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the only exposure occurred at the person’s place of employment.

So, they didn’t go to 35 job sites and were exposed at numerous different job sites. So, it was a real hole in Illinois law, and it left the devastating potential consequences for people to suffer a fatal disease and not have any ability to get compensated for that disease, even though there are clear-cut responsible parties for causing that person’s injury. Frequently, the employer played a role in that.

How Have These Laws Changed?

Maher: Right. So has there been a change now in the law that has impacted Illinois workers being able to sue their employers for asbestos-related diseases?

Kelley: There has, and kind of a precursor to that change in the law was the case from about 2015 that analyzed this precise scenario. The person was injured, they suffered an asbestos-related disease. The disease, the last exposure occurred many years prior, more than 25 years before the diagnosis of the disease.

So, the party argued at all the courts that the Workers’ Compensation Act does not apply, because you can no longer be compensated, pursue it. So, we should be able to pursue a case within the tort system. And the Illinois courts looked at that and said, “Gosh, that sounds really reasonable, but this is a legislative enactment. This is a statute, the Workers’ Compensation Act is a statutory creation, and only the legislature can change that. We can’t do it.”

So, four years later, probably because the legislature learned of this case, the legislature changed the Workers’ Compensation Act to explicitly exclude from the purview of the Workers’ Compensation Act, any diseases. Not just mesothelioma, but all occupational diseases, any disease that occurs more than 25 years after that person’s last exposure. And so, statutorily, the result would be that employees can now sue their employers for negligence.

So, there’s going to be a difference. Under the old scheme for the people who could file a workers’ compensation claim, their exposure fit within the timeline. But the Workers’ Compensation Act, again, they didn’t have to prove fault. All they had to prove is that they were exposed to asbestos and then that injury caused them an asbestos-related disease.

If they’re able to do that, then it was compensable under the Workers’ Compensation Act and they received medical expenses and lost income benefits. So, that certainly relieved a bit of a burden from the employee to do.

So, when the Illinois legislature enacted this new change of the statute, they could no longer pursue their case for injuries occurring greater than 25 years. They could no longer pursue their case in the workers’ compensation system. They had to pursue the tort system. The difference is, is now you have to prove fault.

You have to prove that the employer actually did something wrong. They knew or should have known, they intentionally or negligently caused the injury. And then people have to prove their damages and run through the full gauntlet. And that could require a jury verdict, and it could take 2, 3, 4, 5 years to get through that system.

Now, the benefits are that the damages typically are there’s greater damages available in a tort claim than there is in a workers’ compensation claim. And so, lots of times employees can get something called pain and suffering, which you typically cannot get in a workers’ compensation claim. So, that was certainly a major benefit.

But by far the biggest benefit is, you’re not left without any remedy at all, which is what happened under the prior scheme and what the Illinois Supreme Court had interpreted the old Workers’ Compensation Act before the changes and there will just be a category of people that just, there was nothing they could do.

Legislature’s Amendment to the Statutes

Maher: Right. So the courts now have interpreted the Illinois legislature’s amendment to the statute. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Kelley: Absolutely. So, the case that we alluded to earlier, the Martin v. Goodrich case, that actually was a benzene case, but it’s the same concept. Benzene is a chemical, it causes a disease that may not manifest for many years down the road. And what the Illinois Supreme Court was asked to do is to essentially determine whether the legislature’s change to the law was appropriate. Did it satisfy due process? Did it satisfy constitutional concerns? And ultimately, the Supreme Court held that it did.

And the big concern certainly was the, does this manifest unfairness of employees not being able to seek remedy for injuries that were caused as a result of employment, and for employers to essentially not be forced to pay anything or do anything. And it was a lengthy decision and there’s a lot to it, but essentially, I believe that as we sit here today, the law is completely clear.

That for someone who’s diagnosed with mesothelioma and asbestos related lung cancer, asbestosis or any other disease, if that disease manifests more than 25 years following their last date of exposure, the employee is not left without a remedy. They can pursue their employer in the tort system and potentially get compensated if they prove their case for the injuries they’ve suffered and their families can as well.

So, if the employee were to succumb to the disease, then the spouse or family members can pursue those claims as well, and they’re not limited by the Workers’ Compensation Act. And more importantly, they’re not completely and entirely denied the ability to recover for their injuries.

What Steps Should Someone With This Type Of Disease Take?

Maher: Right, absolutely. So, what key steps should someone with a possible occupational disease take, especially if the symptoms do arise decades after the exposure, to determine whether or not they have a viable negligence claim under these principles that were set forth in Martin v. Goodrich Corp?

Kelley: I mean, easily the best thing to do is to consult with a lawyer immediately. I mean, certainly, I think a lot of people who were diagnosed with that disease, they know how they were exposed. They know that they were occupationally exposed. Maybe they didn’t know at the time, but they learned later on.

We frequently see a lot of folks who worked in an industry or worked in a plant and they’re the 12th person that was diagnosed with a disease from that plant, and other people hear about it. Frequently, people don’t know how they were exposed, they don’t know where they were exposed, they weren’t told that there was asbestos at the facility.

So, it’s very important to seek the advice of an attorney who can help walk you through all the things necessary because you have to first decide how the exposure occurred. You have to second, determine when it occurred. When was the last exposure? Because that’s important for this kind of exception to the workers exclusivity. If it was 15 years after the person’s last exposure, they’re probably still stuck in the workers’ compensation system. If it’s greater than 25 years, then I think there’s a good chance.

And then you have to start trying to figure out whether the employer really did something wrong. Was there some reason why the employer knew or should have known that asbestos was present on the property, that maybe they used asbestos as a part of their process there? Was the employer aware of the hazards of asbestos during the period of time? All of that kind of changes as time progressed. Asbestos was being used in the 1930s it was still being used in the 2000s. And there are even some limited situations where it might still be used today.

And so, you have to take a look at who the employer is, the employer’s relative sophistication, ability to know and understand. And quite frankly, those are just things that most of the time an injured person who has a lot of things on their mind other than trying to go after their employer, is just not going to know. And we have a history, almost 30 years of working on these cases and understanding who all the players are. And if we’ve not dealt with a particular employer for whatever reason, I’m very confident that we can figure it out quickly. So, investigation is crucial.

There are statute of limitations for pursuing such a claim even against your employer. And I believe under Illinois law, they have two years to pursue a case. So, that time goes by fast, and it would be very important to determine what your rights are ahead of time. And the quicker you do that, the quicker a case can get filed, and that means you can participate in your case.

Unfortunately, by the time this diagnosis comes through and people start figuring out what their legal rights are, their health is a real concern. This fatal disease, mesothelioma, and the life expectancy has gotten better over the years, but it’s still not really good. And we want for people to be able to participate in their case, we want people to be able to testify.

We want people to not only be able to say how they were exposed, but to be able to explain to judge, jury, and the employers how this disease has impacted them and their families. And the only way that you can do that is to act quickly and retain lawyers that will act quickly, and try to proceed through the system because things don’t always move as quickly as we want them to. But that’s just the result of the process and hopefully not the result of delay in getting to us, because can really have a devastating consequence.

Maher: All right. Well, that’s all really great information. Paul, thanks again for speaking with me today.

Kelley: Thanks John, I appreciate it.

Maher: And for more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, you can visit the law firm of Satterley and Kelley at Satterleylaw.com, or call (855) 385-9532.