Sheryl Faust v. Illinois Workers Compensation Commission, et al.

A person’s most fundamental rights are triggered when they are injured at work, the right to protect bodily integrity and the correlative right to a fair mechanism for redress. More than a century ago, Illinois substituted an administrative compensation system for the worker’s common law and self-help options. The state monopolized the means for redress and made each worker dependent on the state mechanism for relief when they were injured. The same is true of every workers’ compensation system in the nation. But states are methodically carving away at these mechanisms for redress through legislative enactments and reinterpretation of old statutory provisions. In 2015, Illinois courts discovered new thresholds for compensation in a three word clause which had not changed since the start of the system. The state applied the new thresholds to deny Faust’s treatment and benefits. However, the state’s new threshold scheme is an arbitrary barrier against compensation. This petition presents a question of vital importance to all injured workers and their dependents. Whether the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment prevent states from using arbitrary barriers to deprive workers of their right to protect bodily integrity and correlative right to a fair mechanism for redress?