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UAL Employees: Know your rights!
What you should know before filing a claim
Since United Air Lines is based in Chicago, an important source for knowing your rights is the Illinois Workers Compensation Commission. Before pursuing any action involving UAL, you should:
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familiarize yourself with the Illinois Workers Compensation Act, in particular, Section 4.h of this document, which reads:
(h) It shall be unlawful for any employer, insurance company or service or adjustment company to interfere with, restrain or coerce an employee in any manner whatsoever in the exercise of the rights or remedies granted to him or her by this Act or to discriminate, attempt to discriminate, or threaten to discriminate against an employee in any way because of his or her exercise of the rights or remedies granted to him or her by this Act.
It shall be unlawful for any employer, individually or through any insurance company or service or adjustment company, to discharge or to threaten to discharge, or to refuse to rehire or recall to active service in a suitable capacity an employee because of the exercise of his or her rights or remedies granted to him or her by this Act .
- consult the Rules Governing Practice Before the Illinois Workers' Compensation Committee (PDF)
- if you speak to anyone representing United, their medical
representatives, vocational resources, etc., make detailed notes of the meeting, noting the date, time, people who attended, what each said, and so forth; this is to make sure that you have some documentation on hand should it prove necessary during subsequent legal proceedings
- if you're speaking by phone, take your notes during the conversation; some U.S. states may allow you to record the conversation without the other party's knowledge, but this is not the case for California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington
United uses the services of Gallagher Basset to investigate employees who file claims, e.g., under the workers compensation act. Gallagher Bassett has devised an interesting "Red Flag" scorecard (original here, although likely not for long) for evaluating claims for worker's compensation. Many of the scored items seem perfectly obvious things for a claims inspector to verify, such as whether medical bills indicate treatment on the weekend or the doctor's usual day off, or if the medical practitioner's clinical notes (fail to) support the conclusions in the report. Other items are less obvious, for example:
- (under "Surveillance") "Claimant is very elusive; unable to follow"
- (under "Attorneys") "Attorney consistently willing to compromise for low dollar amounts"
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