1st Dist. Appellate Court – Decided 2/6/25
The case involved Plaintiff, Scott Petersen’s appeal of the Oak Lawn Police Pension Board’s decision to deny him disability benefits. Petersen, a police officer since 2011, sustained a shoulder injury in two separate on-duty incidents in 2018 and 2019. Despite medical treatments, including surgery and physical therapy, he continued experiencing pain and limited motion. Multiple doctors evaluated him, with some recommending a second surgery that Petersen ultimately declined due to concerns over its effectiveness.
In 2020, surveillance footage showed Petersen riding a motorcycle, leading the Board to question the severity of his disability. Additionally, in 2021, a video surfaced of him physically restraining a suspect in an off-duty altercation, further challenging his disability claim. The Board’s independent medical examiners reassessed their opinions, with one doctor reversing his initial assessment and concluding Petersen was not disabled. The Board denied both line-of-duty and non-duty disability pensions, citing Petersen’s physical abilities shown in the videos, inconsistencies in his testimony, and his refusal to undergo further surgery as factors.
The Circuit Court later reversed the Board’s decision. The Circuit Court found the Board’s decision was against the manifest weight of the evidence because: (1) there was no medical evidence that riding a motorcycle was beyond plaintiff’s non-duty capabilities, (2) most of the doctors had opined plaintiff was still disabled after viewing the video of the Westchester incident, (3) the Board improperly found that plaintiff’s testimony was incredible and inconsistent with video of the Westchester incident, and (4) the Board failed to adequately explain why it relied on the updated opinion of Dr. Vitello over and above the opinions of the other doctors. Regarding the issue of plaintiff’s purportedly unreasonable failure to treat his injury, the circuit court found the Board failed to consider and credit plaintiff’s reasonable trepidation in getting a second surgery, and his significant efforts to remedy his injury by undergoing the initial, unsuccessful surgery and engaging in extensive physical therapy.
On Appeal, the Appellate Court vacated both the Board’s and the Circuit Court’s rulings, remanding the case for further proceedings. The Appellate Court explained the term “disability” in the Pension Code “exclude[s] medical conditions that can be remedied without significant danger to life or health or extraordinary suffering and when medical opinion indicates that a prescribed remedy offers a reasonable prospect for relief.” citing Mulack v. Hickory Hills Police Pension Board, 252 Ill. App. 3d 1063, 1071 (1993).
The Appellate Court determined that newly discovered medical evidence warranted reconsideration. The newly discovered evidence consisted of: Plaintiff’s shoulder had a new MRI, and Plaintiff was subsequently reevaluated by three physicians as part of an ongoing workers compensation claim. The new medical opinions established Plaintiff was not a candidate for arthroscopic surgery, and in fact the prior recommended surgery would not have been helpful and more likely than not would have been detrimental to Plaintiff’s condition.
The court vacated both the circuit court’s ruling and the Board’s decision, remanding the case back to the Board for further evaluation of the plaintiff’s disability claim.