Keefe: Employee's Retaliatory Discharge Action Dismissed

A former City of Chicago employee’s Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act retaliatory-discharge claim failed as a matter of law because there was no evidence the official who made the decision to terminate the plaintiff (and many others) had any knowledge that the plaintiff filed a workers’ compensation claim. Instead, the evidence tended to show the decision to terminate the plaintiff was part of a reduction in force, or RIF, that affected some 300–400 city jobs. Evidence indicated the plaintiff had not been singled out; everyone who hel...