Charles Elbert Defeats Worker’s Compensation Retaliation Theory

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On June 29, 2023, Charles Elbert obtained summary judgment from the Circuit Court in Randolph County, Illinois on behalf of an employer in response to a former employee’s (“Plaintiff”) claim that she had been discharged from one of the employer’s Illinois facilities in retaliation for filing workers’ compensation claim.  While processing Plaintiff’s workers’ compensation claim, the employer’s third-party administrator discovered that Plaintiff’s social security number (“SSN”), which she had submitted years earlier to prove eligibility to work in the United States, was invalid.  The employer gave Plaintiff the opportunity to present a valid SSN, but she did not do so, and the employer then discharged her.  The Court rejected Plaintiff’s argument that the jury should decide whether the workers’ compensation claim was the “but for” cause of her discharge and agreed with the employer’s argument that the fraudulent SSN, which required the employer to discharge Plaintiff, was the valid, non-pretextual cause of Plaintiff’s discharge.