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By: Kisa P. Sthaniya
On January 24, 2025, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Martin v. Goodrich Corp., 2025 IL 130509, upholding the constitutionality of a 2019 amendment to the Illinois Workers’ Occupational Diseases Act (OD Act), 820 ILCS 310/1, et seq. This case required the Illinois Supreme Court to construe §§1(f) and 1.1 of the OD Act in the context of a wrongful-death and survival action. The court was called on to answer three key questions:
Factual and Procedural Background
The claimant, Rodney Martin, worked for BF Goodrich from 1966 to 2012. During his employment, he was exposed to vinyl chloride monomer and related chemical products — compounds known to cause sarcoma of the liver. His exposure to vinyl chloride ended in 1974. Decades later, in 2019, he was diagnosed with angiosarcoma of the liver and died in July 2020. His widow, Candice Martin, filed a civil suit in November 2021 under the Wrongful Death Act, 740 ILCS 180/0.01, et seq., and the survival statute, 755 ILCS 5/27-6, alleging that her husband’s occupational exposure caused his illness and death.
She named Goodrich and its successor, PolyOne, as defendants, seeking to proceed outside the workers’ compensation system by invoking §1.1 of the OD Act, 820 ILCS 310/1.1. That provision, added in 2019, allows a plaintiff to pursue a civil action if compensation is barred under the OD Act by the statute of repose.
The defendants moved to dismiss. PolyOne asserted a lack of personal jurisdiction. Goodrich argued that §1.1 was inapplicable because §1(f) constituted a statute of repose and that, in any event, the new provision could not retroactively revive a time-barred claim without violating constitutional due-process rights.
Workers’ Occupational Diseases Act and the Exclusivity Doctrine
The court reiterated that the OD Act was enacted to provide no-fault compensation for occupational diseases that are disabling as a result of workplace exposures (820 ILCS 310/1(d)). Like the Workers’ Compensation Act, the OD Act was intended to replace common-law remedies with a more efficient, administrative process. The exclusivity provisions under §5(a) of the OD Act bar civil actions for work-related injuries in most circumstances.
However, this exclusivity is not absolute. The Martin court noted that employees can pursue civil claims when their condition (1) was not accidental, (2) did not arise from the employment, (3) was not received during the course of employment, or (4) as in Martin, supra, is not compensable under the OD Act. 2025 IL 130509 at ¶20. This exception was squarely addressed in Folta v. Ferro Engineering, 2015 IL 118070, 43 N.E.3d 108, 397 Ill.Dec. 781, in which the Supreme Court upheld the exclusivity bar despite the claim being time-barred under the OD Act, concluding that the absence of a remedy due to the statute of repose did not render the injury noncompensable.
Folta led to widespread criticism due to its harsh result: the employee was left without any remedy. In response, the legislature enacted §1.1 in 2019, which explicitly allows civil actions when claims are barred under the OD Act by a statute of repose.
Section 1(f) is a Statute of Repose
The first issue was whether §1(f), which bars compensation unless disablement occurs within a specified period after last exposure, constitutes a statute of repose. 820 ILCS 301/1(f). The court held that it does. Like §6(c) — previously identified in Folta as a statute of repose — §1(f) operates to extinguish claims after a defined period, regardless of when the injury manifests or whether it has yet accrued.
The Martin court emphasized that both §§1(f) and 6(c) are conditions precedent to recovery. Compliance with both is necessary for a valid claim under the OD Act. Failure to meet these time limitations results not just in a procedural bar but a substantive extinguishment of the right to compensation. Thus, the protections of the OD Act, including the exclusivity bar, are no longer available to employers when §1.1 applies.
Section 1.1 Applies Prospectively
The court next turned to the temporal reach of 820 ILCS 301/1.1. Because the statute does not expressly provide whether it is retroactive or prospective, the court applied §4 of the Statute on Statutes (5 ILCS 70/4), which states that substantive amendments apply prospectively unless otherwise provided.
Section 1.1 was deemed substantive, as it created a new right of action outside the administrative system for certain claimants barred from relief under the OD Act. As such, it may not be applied retroactively to revive previously extinguished claims. However, when an occupational disease was discovered after the statute’s enactment, the court concluded that civil remedy under §1.1 is available.
Section 1.1 Does Not Violate Due Process
The final issue was whether applying 820 ILCS 301/1.1 to exposures that occurred decades earlier would violate employers’ due-process rights under the Illinois Constitution. The court rejected this argument, reasoning that employers do not have a vested right in the exclusivity defense until the cause of action accrues. This occurs when all elements of the tort claim are present — namely, the diagnosis or discovery of injury.
In this case, the court noted that the injury (angiosarcoma) was discovered in 2019, and the civil complaint was filed in 2021 — after the enactment of §1.1. Therefore, no vested right was disturbed. The exclusivity defense had not accrued before the legislative change, and the employer’s reliance on repose or exclusivity defenses did not carry constitutional weight under these facts.
This decision reverses the harsh outcomes resulting from Folta, supra, and signals the court’s continued deference to legislative corrections in the complex field of occupational diseases law. Practitioners should carefully evaluate exposure timelines, diagnosis dates, and procedural posture when assessing case viability, particularly in toxic exposure claims arising outside the traditional temporal scope of the Workers’ Compensation Act or the OD Act.