Q: Covid-19 time extension for Worker's Compensation Illinois.

A: To the best of my knowledge, no statute of limitations was extended as a result of the pandemic. If the three-year SOL for filing your claim ran during the last two weeks of March when the Commission was closed, you would have a strong argument for being able to timely file your claim on April 1, 2020. It is not possible to provide a more accurate answer to such a general question. At that time, everything was manually file-stamped by Commission employees only. Copies of the file stamped materials were then transferred to data entry were each document was manually entered. I can't say that I remember the situation at that time but I do recall that by September, 2020, filings were at least a week behind. What I am saying is even if you physically tendered a document on September 1, 2020, it is entirely conceivable that it would not be file-stamped until September 10, 2020. To the best of my understanding, a significant backlog remained until electronic filing was implemented on April 21, 2021. If you had a time-sensitive filing during that year, you needed to contact someone in authority at the Commission. It was a mess.

In 2020, an emergency amendment was added to the Illinois Worker's Compensation Act which created a rebuttable presumption that front-line workers who contracted Covid 19, contracted it through their work. This amendment was struck down by the courts.