Legal Question in Personal Injury in Illinois

Anything that is filed with the court including all depositions, medical records, reports etc... are public record and may be used at any time in any proceedings in the future. Anyone knowing about the date of the deposition and the name of the reporter can get a copy of it. Anything in your court file can be obtained by any member of the public for any reason by simply going to the courthouse and ordering the file to view it.

Your attorney has an obligation under the law to keep his file for 7 years--after which he can toss it all into garbage. During that period of time, anything in the file may be viewed by anyone provided you have given permission or a valid subpoena has been issued-in which case the attorney has to comply even if you have not given permission.

With respect to the Worker's comp settlement- you have the answer. Before getting paid you signed an agreement (pink paper) and on it it states the name of the insurance company paying the settlement. Look at the paperwork of you do not have a copy get a copy of the settlement agreement from your attorney.

As a supplement to what the other attorney stated:

Usually, deposition transcripts are not filed in the court, although notices of the deposition are. The notices do not have the name of the court reporter so a stranger is not likely to be able tolook at it.

Additionally, you can check with the Industrial Commission to determine if a comp case was filed.

Finally, most of whatever you obtain from comp has to be repaid to the comp carrier if there is a judgment or settlement with a thrid party.

One other addition: The defendant's insurance company will also have the medical records in their claim file. Depending on the insurer, those records may be kept for a couple of years before being destroyed, they may never be destroyed, or something in between.