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Workers' Compensation

Recent Posts in Workers' Compensation Category

  • How Do Missouri Workers’ Compensation Cases Settle?

    The vast majority of workers’ compensation claims in Missouri settle out of court. Only a few go to trial with the administrative law judge , and even fewer are appealed to the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) or into the court system. Settling your claim, however, ends your case. If you do not settle for enough, you will not have the full amount of compensation that you need and ...
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  • Can I Get Fired for Filing for Workers’ Comp?

    A frequent concern that employees have when they get hurt on the job is getting fired for exercising their rights to workers’ compensation . The law in Missouri is clear: Your employer is prohibited from retaliating against you for filing a workers’ compensation claim or reporting a workplace injury. In practice, though, it is more complicated. Missouri Law Forbids Retaliation Against Workers ...
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  • Why is the Second Injury Fund Statute So Confusing?

    Many of the recent disputes in Missouri workers’ compensation law have centered on the reading of Missouri Statute 287.220 . The Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) has been repeatedly reprimanded by Missouri courts for applying the wrong subsection of the law. Why has the LIRC, which is supposed to be intimately familiar with workers’ compensation law in the state, consistently made ...
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  • LIRC Affirms Award Under Last Exposure Rule

    Given the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission’s (LIRC) longstanding trend towards denying any claim for workers’ compensation that it can, a recent affirmation of an administrative law judge’s grant of temporary total disability and survivor benefits comes as a surprise. The specific facts of the case offered an opportunity for the LIRC to deny the claim, but it chose not to. Diesel Mechanic ...
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  • What is Maximum Medical Improvement in Missouri?

    Maximum medical improvement, or MMI, is a fundamental concept in workers’ compensation law in Missouri. It is the point where the victim’s workplace injuries have stabilized and will not improve any more. Once MMI has been reached, workers’ compensation benefits shift from medical care and temporary disability benefits to permanent disability benefits. What is Maximum Medical Improvement in ...
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  • How Light Duty Roles Can Create Workplace Conflicts

    After a workplace injury, the goal for most workers is to get back on the job. While workers’ compensation will cover their medical expenses and the wages they have lost while they were recovering, once a doctor clears the worker for light duty, those temporary disability benefits can disappear if the worker refuses a reasonable offer to come back to work. While employers in Missouri are not ...
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  • Do Missouri Employers Have to Offer Light Duty?

    Under Missouri workers’ compensation law, employers are not legally obligated to provide light duty work to employees who have had work restrictions imposed by a doctor after a workplace injury. However, for financial reasons, many employers do provide light duty roles. Employees who are offered an adequate light duty role may lose workers’ compensation benefits if they turn it down. What is Light ...
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  • The LIRC’s Streak of Losses in Court Continues

    The Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) is on a very bad streak, as yet another Missouri Court of Appeals overturned its poorly-reasoned denial of workers’ compensation . The newest case is just the latest in a disturbing trend that suggests that the LIRC is less interested in doing justice than it is in throwing out legitimate claims for workers’ compensation. LIRC Muddles Its Way ...
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  • Missouri Appeals Court Roasts LIRC, Again

    The Missouri Court of Appeals issued another workers’ compensation decision last week, overturning a ruling by the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) . Both the content and the style of the appellate court’s ruling give a sense of frustration with the LIRC’s new, disturbing trend of denying coverage to hurt workers. A “Legal Odyssey” of a Case Returns to the Court of Appeals The ...
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  • Can I Sue My Employer for a Work Injury?

    In a recent blog post, we looked at whether workers’ compensation was an exclusive remedy for workers who have been hurt on the job. Generally, it is: Injured workers have to go through the workers’ compensation system, rather than file a personal injury lawsuit against their employer. However, there are exceptions to this rule that can let workers file a lawsuit against their employer and try to ...
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  • Is Workers’ Compensation an Exclusive Remedy?

    In prior posts about Missouri workers’ compensation law, we have referred to the system as a trade-off between employers and their employees. One of the biggest implications of that trade-off is that workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy that injured workers have for on-the-job accidents. Given how workers’ compensation is strictly construed by courts and constantly tightened by the state ...
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  • When Does Workers’ Compensation Start Paying Out?

    Missouri workers who get hurt on the job are entitled to workers’ compensation . When that compensation actually gets paid, though, is very important. People who read our blog may have noticed that some of the cases we have covered involve workplace injuries that happened years earlier. These cases are outliers, though, because they took a judge or magistrate to resolve the dispute. The vast ...
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  • LIRC Uses Idiopathic Injury Rule to Deny Award, Again

    The Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) has once again turned to the idiopathic injury rationale to deny workers’ compensation to a hurt worker. The specific facts of this case show just how unworkable this rationale can be. Medical Complications from Truck Accident Leads to Leg Amputation Back in February, 2014, a truck driver with diabetes left Missouri for Arkansas. In Arkansas, he ...
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  • What Workers’ Compensation Benefits are Available in Missouri?

    Employees who get hurt on the job in Missouri are often entitled to workers’ compensation . But what does “compensation” mean? Here is what it includes. 3 Types of Workers Compensation Benefits in Missouri Each state has a different way of structuring workers’ compensation. Missouri’s system provides 3 kinds of benefits to hurt workers: Medical treatment, including travel expenses Disability ...
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  • How Bad is the Brock Decision for Hurt Workers?

    A few weeks ago, we covered a workers’ compensation case where the Missouri Supreme Court narrowed co-worker liability . The negative effects of that decision on workplace safety cannot be understated. Missouri Supreme Court Narrows Co-Worker Liability The issue is fairly simple: What can workers do when they are hurt on the job by one of their coworkers? For example, in the case that the Missouri ...
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  • Missouri Court Narrows Co-Worker Liability

    The Missouri Supreme Court weighed in on an important aspect of workers’ compensation law: Co-employee liability. The results were not good for injured workers. Missouri Supreme Court Reverses Workers’ Compensation Award The case is Brock v. Dunne . What happened was pretty straightforward. Several manufacturing workers would feed a sheet of particle board into a machine. Rollers in the machine ...
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  • LIRC’s Wrongful Denial of Workers’ Compensation Overturned

    Once again, the Missouri Court of Appeals had to step in and reverse a workers’ compensation decision by the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) over the Second Injury Fund . These successful appeals all follow a shocking case where the LIRC expressly refused to follow a court ruling . Injured Worker Appeals Denial of Workers’ Compensation The case, Marberry v. Second Injury Fund , ...
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  • What are Survivor Benefits in Missouri?

    When a worker is hurt on the job, he or she is entitled to workers’ compensation . When the workplace accident was a fatal one, though, that compensation cannot go to the worker. Instead, it goes to his or her dependents in the form of survivor benefits. What are Survivor Benefits Under Missouri Workers’ Compensation Law? Survivor benefits are a type of workers’ compensation. They get paid to the ...
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  • Calculating the Average Weekly Wage of Business Owners

    A recent workers’ compensation case centered on how to calculate a business owner’s wage rate. The outcome made it very clear that the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) wields great power in these cases. Repair Shop Owner Dies on the Job The case was Williams v. Reeds, LLC . Reeds, LLC was an auto parts and repair shop. The sole member of the LLC and the owner of the shop died in ...
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  • LIRC Fails to Stay Workers’ Compensation Case, Gets Overturned

    Another Missouri appellate court struck down a workers’ compensation decision by the administrative law judge and the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) for contradicting a binding court case. While this instance is more incompetent than purposeful, it is neither the first nor will it be the last time that hurt workers have been denied coverage, as the LIRC stretches for new ways to ...
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  • What is the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission?

    In many of our blog posts on workers’ compensation , we mention the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission, or LIRC . This Commission is a critical juncture for many claims for workers’ compensation, as it handles any appeals from the administrative law judge who first hears a dispute. Here is how the LIRC works. The Role of the LIRC in Workers’ Compensation When a worker gets hurt in Missouri, ...
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  • LIRC Misreads Court Case, Denies Second Injury Fund Claim

    Missouri’s Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) has yet again found a way to interpret the state’s workers’ compensation laws to deny claims made against the Second Injury Fund (SIF) . Coverage Denied Because Medical Experts Used Extra Injury The case, Ingles v. Corrigan Brothers , involved a 66-year-old union pipefitter who ruptured his rotator cuff at work in 2014. He claimed that ...
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  • The Direct and Causal Connection Required for Occupational Diseases

    People who have been hurt on the job in Missouri have a steep hill to climb to prove that they deserve workers’ compensation . One of the trickiest is to show that there is a direct causal connection between the job and an occupational disease . Occupational Diseases Have to be Directly Caused by Job The workers’ compensation law that defines occupational diseases, Missouri Statute 287.067 , does ...
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  • Is Being a Police Officer Inherently Stressful Enough for Workers’ Compensation?

    A workers’ compensation claim on behalf of a Missouri police officer argued that the stress that he suffered on the job amounted to an occupational disease. The administrative law judge and the Labor and Industrial Relations Board (LIRB), however, disagreed. Police Officer Dies from Heart Condition The claim was filed on the officer’s behalf by his wife. The police officer in St. Louis and ...
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  • Appeals Court Overturns Workers’ Compensation Case

    A Missouri appellate court has overruled the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission on a workers’ compensation case that we covered earlier in our blog. Worker Denied Compensation for Hearing Loss The case involves an airline baggage handler who suffered several successive back injuries. He also had hearing loss from being near so many planes and loud conveyor belts. Nevertheless, the ...
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