Illinois Supreme Court: Village Must Pay Health Insurance for Disabled Cop

In an opinion filed on Sept. 24, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the decisions of two lower courts that an Illinois municipality must pay health insurance premiums for a policeman and his family after the officer was “catastrophically injured” in the line of duty and can no longer work.

The Court summarized the case as follows: “In 2009, William Heelan had been a Village of Vernon Hills police officer for approximately 20 years when, in responding to an emergency call, he slipped on ice and fell on his right side, suffering a hip contusion which aggravated preexisting osteoarthritis in his right hip. He underwent a right hip replacement and briefly worked light duty before he began to have left hip pain which was diagnosed as preexisting osteoarthritis of the left hip, aggravated by the right hip replacement. A left hip replacement was performed and he did not return to work.”

The Board of Trustees of the Vernon Hills Police Pension Fund awarded Heelan a line-of-duty disability pension in 2011 as a result of his injury and subsequent disability. Neither the Village nor its attorney, who had been present at Heelan’s disability hearing, objected.

Heelan later petitioned to have the Village pay health insurance premiums for himself and his dependents in accordance with the state’s Public Safety Employee Benefits Act. The act provides for “employer-sponsored health insurance coverage for public safety employees and their families after such an employee is either killed or catastrophically injured in the line of duty,” the Court stated.

The Village subsequently sought a declaratory judgment in circuit court that it did not have to make these payments, alleging that Heelan “did not meet the statutory requirements of suffering a catastrophic injury.”

Relying on a 2003 Illinois Supreme Court ruling that “catastrophic injury” is synonymous with an injury resulting in a line-of-duty disability pension, both the circuit court and appellate court ruled in favor of Heelan. The Village appealed.

Like the lower courts, the Illinois Supreme Court agreed that its earlier ruling is applicable in Heelan’s case.

“An award of a line-of-duty disability pension establishes a catastrophic injury as a matter of law,” the Court wrote in its summary.

The case is Village of Vernon Hills v. Heelan, 2015 IL 118170.