Kurt Niermann
Partner
Kurt has fought for clients over three decades, focusing on workers' compensation claims, personal injury claims, maritime claims and labor issues. He has tried a large number of cases to verdict over his career, pursuing awards through any level of appeal necessary to protect his client's rights.
Kurt has handled an exceptionally wide range of cases for clients, including traumatic brain injury claims, repetitive trauma claims, heart attack claims, cancer claims, and a variety of occupational disease and occupational exposure claims. He has represented clients from all segments of the workforce, including factory workers, teachers, stylists, clerks, tradespeople, professors, lawyers, nurses, doctors, airline pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers, pharmacists, police officers, truck drivers, firefighters, longshoremen and seamen.
Kurt is one of the few attorneys in the nation who successfully linked brain cancer to electromagnetic radiation in a workplace. He was also the first lawyer in the state to establish that maritime law applied to riverboat casino workers. He has also won some of the largest penalty and fee awards against insurance companies who were mistreating injured workers.
He has recovered many tens of millions of dollars for clients over his career. A sampling of cases include:
- a $2,399,000 recovery for an Ohio truck driver injured in Illinois.
- $1,700,000 plus hundreds of thousands in medical expenses for a different truck driver who fell while exiting her cab
- $2,060,000 for an injured tradesman
- $1,063,000 for the family in the electromagnetic radiation case plus hundreds of thousands in medical expenses
- $ 1,000,000 for a Sheriff’s deputy
On rare occasions, Kurt has agreed to take over pending cases for clients who were not happy with their original lawyers. Examples of those cases include:
- $2,399,000 for the Ohio truck driver after a Chicago firm stopped working on the case after recovering a $100,000 insurance policy
- $500,000, lifetime medical and hundreds of thousands in medical bills for a complicated hernia injury, where three established Chicago workers' comp firms were pushing the client to settle for $17,000
- $500,000 for soft tissue injuries in a rear end collision
- $323,766 and lifetime medical rights for a worker whose prior lawyer was trying to settle the case for $5,000
- $153,637 and lifetime medical rights for a worker whose prior lawyer was trying to settle the case for $4,000
On the labor front, Kurt and his colleagues fought through federal, state and arbitration forums to delay the shutdown of a local manufacturing operation, extending work for hundreds of workers and costing the employer $20,000,000 in the process.
In addition to handling cases, Kurt actively protects the rights of victims through publications, professional memberships and practice in the appellate and supreme courts. He has authored numerous articles for lawyers on workers' compensation topics and maritime topics, including book chapters on wrongful discharge claims and maritime injuries, and he has lectured to lawyer groups at a variety of seminars. He is a member of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (ITLA), the Appellate Lawyers Association (ALA), the Kane County Bar Association (KCBA), the Worker’s Compensation Lawyers Association, (WCLA) the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) and the federal trial bar.
Kurt also devotes considerable time to protecting your workers' comp system from constant assault by businesses, lobbyists and insurance carriers. Kurt's briefing has contributed to the most significant pro-worker wins in the higher courts over the last 20 years:
Sisbro v Industrial Commission, 207 Ill.2d 193 (2003)- This ruling eliminated arbitrary hurdles which were blocking workers from accessing benefits and medical care
Interstate Scaffolding v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, 236 Ill.2d 132 (2010)- This ruling severely reduced the excuses an employer can use to cut off survival payments
Corn Belt v. Lind- This case blocked a coordinated effort by business groups to gut the workers’ compensation system
West Bend Insurance Co v. Bernardino, 2020 IL 124690 - This case blocked insurance companies from using the circuit court to freeze workers' comp claims in their tracks
McAllister v. Northpond, 2020 IL 124848 - This ruling eliminated another arbitrary legal doctrine which threatened to throw half of the workforce out of the workers' comp system
Armstead v National Freight 2021 IL 126730 - This ruling reversed the appellate court's misapplication of an equitable doctrine against the worker
McDonald v Symphony Bronzeville 2022 IL 126511 - This ruling defeated another concerted effort by businesses, lobbying groups and insurance carriers to strand victims without remedies
First Elevator v Bucaro 2022 IL App (1st) 210477WC - This ruling defeated another effort by business groups, lobbyists and insurance carriers to take billions of dollars away from injured workers
