Illinois Bars Workers’ Compensation for State Employees Involved in Crimes

A new law inspired by a former Illinois State Police trooper’s high-speed freeway wreck that killed two sisters bars state employees injured while committing crimes from getting workers’ compensation.

The measure, which was signed into law this week by Gov. Pat Quinn and took effect Aug. 8, follows the 2007 wreck involving Matt Mitchell. He was driving more than 100 mph and using his cell phone on Interstate 64 in southwestern Illinois when his cruiser crossed the median and slammed into a car. Two Collinsville sisters in that car — Jessica Uhl, 18, and Kelli Uhl, 13 — died at the scene.

Mitchell later pleaded guilty to reckless homicide charges and was sentenced to 30 months of probation as part of a deal with prosecutors. His claim for workers’ compensation for his injuries was denied by an arbitrator, who ruled that Mitchell’s injuries resulting from the wreck were not “arising out of and in the course of his employment with the (state).”

The arbitrator also concluded Mitchell took “substantial and unjustifiable risk resulting in a gross deviation in the standard of care of his duties as an Illinois State Trooper,” noting that Mitchell moments before the high-speed wreck wrote e-mails on his in-car computer and took a personal phone call.

The measure sponsored by state Sen. Bill Haine, an Alton Democrat who once was a county prosecutor, would prevent any state employee hurt at work from being eligible for worker’s compensation if the injury happened during a forcible felony, an aggravated DUI or a reckless homicide, and if any of those crimes killed or injured another person.

Mitchell is appealing the denial of his workers’ compensation claim, and the new law would not affect his case because the measure is not retroactive.

“Our workers’ compensation system is designed to protect workers injured on the job, not those who commit crimes,” Quinn said, adding that the new law was meant to ensure “that workers’ compensation benefits go only to those who deserve them.”

Mitchell, who sustained serious leg injuries in the wreck, resigned from his job last year after his guilty pleas.

The Uhl sisters’ mother, Kimberly Schlau, called the new law “an important step in eliminating the loopholes in the workers’ compensation system,” noting that in Mitchell’s case “we were surprised to learn he was eligible to receive compensation benefits with a felony conviction.”

“By closing this loophole, it is one less insult to our injury,” she said.

Topics Fraud Legislation Workers' Compensation Talent Illinois