Illinois Appellate Court, First District, November 27, 2024
The Illinois Appellate Court, in an unpublished opinion, reversed the Retirement Board’s denial of a duty disability pension and found the plaintiff entitled to a duty disability.
In denying a duty disability, the Retirement Board for the City of Chicago found the plaintiff’s 2016 car accident which resulted in a disabling lumbar spine condition was not a duty disability. In arriving at this finding, the Board placed greater weight on one physician, Dr. Neal, to the exclusion of at least two other treating opinions which found the car accident caused the lumbar spine condition. Dr. Neal concluded plaintiff’s condition was unrelated to the car accident, but did not provide any alternative cause for plaintiff’s disability. The Board argued that no physician excluded an idiopathic cause as a basis of plaintiff’s disability. The Board also found that because the plaintiff returned to work without restrictions after the car accident from 2016 until 2021 that this fact negated any duty related disability. However, the record demonstrated the plaintiff continued to have ongoing pain when she returned to work and her condition worsened which led to multiple surgeries including a lumbar fusion surgery.
The Court found the Board’s assumption that plaintiff’s back condition was the result of an idiopathic cause had no evidentiary basis in the record. The Court also noted that Dr. Neal’s report did not support the Board’s position that plaintiff’s return to work was because her condition was unrelated to work. According to the Court, the plaintiff’s return to work alone is insufficient evidence to conclude the injuries from the 2016 accident were thoroughly resolved by June 2016.
In reversing the Board’s decision, the Court emphasized there although there were conflicting medical opinions, there was no conflicting evidence on the actual cause of plaintiff’s disability. There was no evidence of any intervening injury, medical condition, or even a proposed opinion attributing the disability to normal aging. According to the Court, absent any other explanation, the opposite conclusion of the Board was clearly evident.
The key take away from this case is when relying upon an expert opinion, a pension board should be sure that the medical expert has thoroughly addressed the disability condition and the cause of that condition based upon the factual evidence presented.
(C) Radja Collins Law 2025