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Workplace Injury

Recent Posts in Workplace Injury Category

  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • Commission’s Narrow Workers’ Compensation Ruling Overturned, Again

    The Missouri Court of Appeals has again overruled the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission for its refusal to follow state Supreme Court precedent over the Second Injury Fund . The case is another step in the ongoing fight to get hurt workers the workers’ compensation they need to recover. Commission Refuses Second Injury Funds for Multiple Injuries The case involved a welder who hurt his ...
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  • What are Third Party Claims in Workers’ Compensation?

    In Missouri, third party claims happen when a victim gets hurt while on the job by someone who is unrelated to the workplace. In these cases, the victim can recover workers’ compensation , and can file a personal injury lawsuit against the party that hurt them. However, the workers’ compensation insurance company can put a lien on the personal injury settlement to recover what it had already paid ...
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  • Statutory Employers are Immune from Civil Lawsuits

    In several recent blog posts dealing with workers’ compensation law, we have looked at what statutory employees are , why they exist , and the “usual course of business” defense that many employers make. While statutory employees can use this legal concept to benefit from workers’ compensation coverage from someone other than their direct employer, it also means that these statutory employers are ...
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  • Missouri Supreme Court Rules on Second Injury Fund, Again

    The Missouri Supreme Court recently waded back into the waters of the Second Injury Fund , one of the most controversial aspects of the state’s workers’ compensation system. While its prior case dealt with Senate Bill 1 and its drastic limitations on who could benefit from the bankrupted fund , this new case is more about clarifying when the worker’s preexisting injury would trigger the Fund. ...
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  • Workers’ Compensation and Idiopathic Causes

    A Missouri appellate court has, once again, narrowly read the state’s workers’ compensation law to reduce the amounts that have to be paid by businesses after a workplace injury . In this case, the issue concerned idiopathic diseases, or those that do not have an identifiable cause. Obese Worker Dies from Heatstroke The case is Halsey v. Townsend Tree Service Co. , and involves the tragic case of ...
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  • Workers’ Compensation Retaliation and Sovereign Immunity

    A recent case by the Missouri Court of Appeals emphasized the role that sovereign immunity plays in the state’s workers’ compensation law. Worker Claims Termination Was Retaliation for Filing Workers’ Compensation Claim The case involved a worker at the University of Missouri, the state’s public college. After several months of complaints from her subordinates, the worker’s supervisors decided to ...
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  • Why are There Statutory Employers in Missouri?

    Several months ago, we discussed statutory employees in the context of workers’ compensation law in Missouri. While this classification of worker is essential for ensuring that hurt workers get compensated for their onsite injuries, the reasons for having statutory employees is not readily apparent. Here are three reasons why Missouri recognizes statutory employees and why they are useful for the ...
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