Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
Lake County Circuit Court Judge Diane Winter ruled Tuesday that the family of 51-year-old Buffalo Grove Firefighter Kevin Hauber who died of colon cancer last year should receive a full pension benefit, upholding an earlier decision by a local review board that his fatal cancer was caused in the line of duty. Winter said two medical experts already found that Hauber’s death was likely the result of performing acts of duty, or cumulative acts of duty, which involved repeated exposure to toxic smoke and carcinogens while on the job.
Last summer, Buffalo Grove officials announced they were challenging a decision made earlier in 2018 by the Buffalo Grove Fire Department Pension Board that the family of should receive a full line-of-duty death pension. Hauber, a veteran firefighter and paramedic in Buffalo Grove, died in January 2018, roughly four years after being diagnosed with colon cancer.
In the village’s lawsuit filed June 2018, Buffalo Grove officials said they were appealing the pension board’s decision because of their fiduciary responsibilities to taxpayers, arguing the state’s pension laws require more evidence that Hauber’s fatal cancer was the result of his 23 years of firefighting. Village officials at the time estimated the full, 100-percent pension award of Hauber’s annual $100,000 salary would create an additional liability of $1.7 million compared to a 75-percent award that the Hauber family was qualified to receive.
The ruling also comes as debates about the still-unclear link between firefighting and cancer unfold across Illinois and the rest of the country. An ongoing, multiyear study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safely and Health of nearly 30,000 firefighters from the Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco fire departments has found higher rates of certain types of cancer among firefighters than the general population.
The study also supported a newly signed federal law, the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act, requiring the CDC to collect data via a voluntary registry as part of its ongoing research into whether firefighters’ work increases the odds of them developing some types of cancer.
