Illinois Supreme Court Asked to Clarify Workers’ Comp Exception

A federal appeals court in Chicago sent a trio of related questions to the Illinois Supreme Court in an effort to clarify how workers can sue over work-related diseases that take years to manifest.

The three questions together “present a roadmap to handling claims for asbestosis, angiosarcoma, and other diseases that manifest only belatedly,” the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said Wednesday.

“Illinois’s coordinate branches have signaled the importance of these issues—and for all the weight Illinoisans and their government place on these issues, they have zero effect outside the state,” the court said. “At the end ...