30 year fight continues for injured worker to have his day before the Illinois Supreme Court

Simpson believes state’s appeal process has failed to give him a chance at justice

By Walter Pritchard
Soaring High Media Group
walter@soaringhighmediagroup.com

Andrew Simpson is carrying emotional, psychological and physical pain of an injustice that has defined the past 30 years of his life. He wants the Illinois Supreme Court to hear his case, which it has refused to do.

“This is plainly a violation us my constitutional rights,” Simpson said. “It’s not so much about the money any more. Give me my constitutional rights. Let me play the game like everybody else.”

In 1981, Andrew Simpson was seriously injured on the job while working as a die caster for Amerock Corp. in Rockford, IL. Experiencing serious and painful bodily dysfunction and while on sick leave following the accident, the company subsequently terminated his employment about six weeks later.

Amerock held the position that his injuries were non-work related and Amerock was not liable. The company also asserted that Simpson sick leave was not authorized by Amerock, thus justifying his firing.

Simpson filed a workers compensation claim, but was declared incompetent to handle his affairs by the Illinois Workers Compensation Commission. As a result, he has been denied health benefits and disability payments under workers compensation, and denied the opportunity to take the matter to court, including a hearing before the Illinois Supreme Court.

Simpson also has issues with former Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission arbitrator John Dibble, who up until October was on paid administrative leave.

Dibble has been the subject of recent stories in the Belleville News-Democrat, including those in which he received a workers' comp settlement for carpal tunnel syndrome. He also represented cases for carpal tunnel syndrome filed by 230 guards at the Illinois Menard Correctional Center. Dibble approved over half of the repetitive trauma cases filed by the guards, who collected nearly $10 million in a three year period. Dibble was not reappointed as an arbitrator in October by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.

Simpson also filed a racial discrimination suit with the Illinois Human Rights Commission shortly after is dismissal from Amerock. The commission issued a decision in his favor saying that he was discriminated against because of his race. The lawsuit was later dismissed because he couldn’t afford an attorney.

Amerock rejected Simpson’s claims that he sustained accidental injuries while on the job and even the opinion of Simpson’s personal doctor. He was examined by a doctor representing Liberty Mutual, and Simpson consequently was later dismissed. In a letter, Liberty Mutual said disability benefits were denied him because what he was “suffering” from “did not arise in the course of your employment.”

He hired Attorney Charles Stegmeyer to handle worker’s compensation case. He was able to get the case reopened. In doing so, the Commission ordered that Simpson be considered incompetent from the date of the accident, based on the medical evidence and information from the Social Security Administration.

In 2004, Simpson’s case against Amerock went to arbitration before the Illinois Workers Compensation Commission in an attempt to resolve the dispute. Claims for workers' compensation benefits in Illinois are administered by the Commission, a state agency.

In 2005, Simpson was declared competent to assist in his own defense in his fight to be heard before the state’s Supreme Court. Even with the declaration, he is still being denied due process for his day before the state’s high court.

As recently as August 16, 2011, Simpson was notified in a letter from the Supreme Court of Illinois that his case against the workers compensation commission and Amerock would not be heard. “No further action” will be taken on this matter, the letter said.

The reason was that Simpson’s appeal from the Appellate Court, Fifth District of the Workers Compensation Division did not have the “statement of two or more judges of the Appellate Court that the case involves a substantial question which warrants consideration by the” Illinois Supreme Court.

Simpson, who lives in the St. Louis area, believes the high court’s refusal to enforce its own rule in this case is a violation of his rights. Simpson holds that Supreme Court rule 317 – Appeals from the Appellate Court shall lie to the Supreme Court as a matter of right in cases in which a statue of the United States or of (Illinois) has been held invalid or in which a question under the Constitution of the United States or of (Illinois) arises for the first time in and as a result of the action of the Appellate Court.

In a letter Simpson penned to Illinois Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride, he cited Rule 317. He also called the decision by the state’s lower court a denial of his rights as “a legally incapacitated disabled person” under the Americans with Disability Act.

Furthermore, Simpson charges that the Appellate Court has denied him his due process and equal protection as expressed under the U.S. Constitution. According to Illinois statue 735 ICLS 5/13-211, state laws say that an individual two years after being restored from incapacity can bring claims made during such incapacitation to court.

The statue reads verbatim: “Minors and persons under legal disability. If the person entitled to bring an action, specified in Sections 13-201 through 13-210 of this Act, at the time the cause of action accrued, is under the age of 18 years, or is under a legal disability, then he or she may bring the action within 2 years after the person attains the age of 18 years, or the disability is removed.”

“That is what they denied me – the 14th amendment – the right to due process and equal protection,” Simpson said. “The state of Illinois is denying me my federal right to due process.”

Throughout the years, Simpson has accumulated hundreds of documents from court transcripts, correspondents with lawyers, the Illinois compensation commission and others. The documents began from his actual injury date of August 27, 1981.

About AmerockFounded in 1929, Amerock is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with a distribution facility in Freeport, Illinois. Amerock markets products in four categories: decorative hardware, decorative hooks, bath accessories and functional hardware.

About Die CastingDie casting is a versatile process for producing engineered metal parts by forcing molten metal under high pressure into reusable steel molds. These molds, called dies, can be designed to produce complex shapes with a high degree of accuracy and repeatability. Parts can be sharply defined with smooth or textured surfaces, and are suitable for a wide variety of attractive and serviceable finishes.

Die castings are among the highest volume, mass-produced items manufactured by the metalworking industry, and they can be found in thousands of consumer, commercial and industrial products. Die cast parts are important components of products ranging from automobiles to toys. Parts can be as simple as a sink faucet or as complex as a connector housing.