A serious burn, a deep laceration that leaves a visible scar, a hand that healed into a permanent deformity — these injuries do more than cause pain. They change how you look, and they can stay with you long after the wound itself has closed. If you were hurt on the job in Illinois and you are left with a permanent, visible mark, you may be entitled to a specific type of workers’ compensation benefit that many injured workers do not know exists. It is called a disfigurement award, and it is separate from payment for your medical bills or your lost time from work.
Here is what Illinois law provides, when it applies, and what you should know before you agree to any settlement that involves a visible scar.
What the Law Says About Disfigurement
Disfigurement benefits come from Section 8(c) of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act. The Act treats a permanent, visible mark as its own compensable harm, even if the injury never cost you a single day of work. As the Illinois Supreme Court recognized in Corn Products Co. v. Industrial Commission, 51 Ill. 2d 338 (1972), a worker does not have to prove any loss of earning power to receive a disfigurement award. Assuming your injury is otherwise covered by the Act — meaning it arose out of and in the course of your employment and you gave timely notice — what you must show is that the disfigurement resulted from that work injury and that it is both serious and permanent. You do not have to prove that the scar reduced your paycheck or your ability to do your job.
That principle matters. Many injured workers assume that if they returned to their old job and their paycheck did not change, they have no claim. When the injury left a lasting mark on a visible part of the body, that assumption can cost them a benefit they may well be entitled to.
Which Injuries and Body Parts Qualify
The Act does not compensate every mark. Section 8(c) applies only to serious and permanent disfigurement affecting specific areas of the body: the hand, head, face, neck, arm, the leg below the knee, or the chest above the axillary line, which is roughly the upper chest at the level of the armpit. Illinois decisions have treated the foot as falling within the leg below the knee for this purpose, so a burn or scar on the foot can qualify. A scar on the lower back or the thigh, by contrast, falls outside the specific disfigurement provision, though it may still support a different category of benefit. One narrow exception applies to firefighters in cities with a population over 500,000 — in practice, Chicago — who are eligible for a disfigurement award under this section only when the disfigurement results from burns.
The disfigurement also has to be permanent. Because scars often fade and change over time, the Act requires that at least six months pass after the date of the accident before an arbitration hearing on disfigurement can be held. This waiting period gives the injury time to settle into its final appearance. That six-month rule limits when a contested hearing can take place — it does not prevent the parties from resolving the disfigurement by agreement sooner, and in practice disfigurement is often folded into a negotiated settlement.
What Counts as “Serious and Permanent”
This is where these cases become very fact-specific. Illinois courts have described disfigurement as something that impairs or injures the beauty, symmetry, or appearance of a person — something that renders the appearance unsightly, misshapen, or imperfect. The law is not meant to compensate every trifling mark that only the closest inspection would reveal. A faint scar above the eyebrow that disappears when the eyes are open, for instance, has been found not serious enough to compensate.
In practice, arbitrators often consider whether the mark is readily observable when they view it in person, and a commonly used rule of thumb is whether it can be seen from roughly six to eight feet away. This is a practical observation, not a formal legal test, and outcomes vary. The legal question remains whether the disfigurement is serious and permanent. Depending on the facts, disfigurement has been compensated in a wide range of situations — a raised, irregular scar on the side of the neck, burn scars, suture markings, discoloration, and even the light patches of skin left behind where a graft was taken. Section 8(c) can also cover deformities, not just scars. A finger left permanently misshapen after a machine injury, for example, can qualify, though how that kind of injury is compensated depends on the points discussed below.
Because so much turns on the size, color, location, and visibility of the mark, the value of a disfigurement claim is genuinely subjective. Two similar-looking scars can receive very different awards depending on where they are, how prominent they are, and how they present at the time of the hearing.
How Disfigurement Awards Are Measured
Disfigurement is paid in weeks of compensation. Under the Act, an award for serious and permanent disfigurement cannot exceed 162 weeks, and the weekly amount is calculated at 60 percent of your average weekly wage, subject to the limits set by statute. The more serious and prominent the disfigurement, the higher the number of weeks that may be awarded.
One important limitation is worth understanding. The Act does not allow a disfigurement award under Section 8(c) where compensation for the same injury is payable under certain other permanency provisions of the Act, including the schedule of specific losses that covers an amputation or loss of use of a body part. Put simply, you generally cannot be paid twice for the same physical consequence of one injury. There is, however, an important exception recognized by the courts: when a single accident causes disfigurement to one area of the body and a genuinely separate permanent disability to a different body part, a worker may recover for both. A burn that scars the face while a separate injury damages the arm, for instance, can support a disfigurement award for the face along with a loss-of-use award for the arm. The key word is separate — assigning two different labels to the same injury will not produce a double recovery. These distinctions are technical, and how your injury is characterized can significantly change what you receive.
Why This Matters When You Settle
Most workers’ compensation cases resolve through a settlement contract rather than a trial. Because disfigurement value is so subjective, it is also an area where an unrepresented worker can easily be shortchanged. An insurance company has every incentive to fold a visible scar into a low overall number, or to overlook it entirely. Understanding that a permanent facial scar or a burn on the neck can carry its own value — separate from your lost wages and your medical benefits — puts you in a much stronger position.
If your injury left you with a permanent, visible mark, it is worth having the claim evaluated before you sign anything. An experienced attorney can assess whether the disfigurement is likely to be considered serious, whether it should be valued under Section 8(c) or a different provision, and whether your case supports awards in more than one category. You can learn more about how our attorneys handle these claims on our workers’ compensation page, and about the range of cases we take on at our Wheaton workers’ compensation office.
Protecting Your Rights
A scar or permanent deformity from a work injury is not just a cosmetic matter in the eyes of Illinois law — it is a compensable loss. If you have questions about disfigurement benefits or any other aspect of your workplace injury, the attorneys at The Law Offices of Millon & Peskin, Ltd. are here to help. We represent injured workers throughout the Chicagoland area, including DuPage, Cook, Will, Kane, and Lake counties. Contact us today at 630-449-3884 for a free consultation to discuss your case.