Nixon vetos work comp bill, Senate overrides, now the House must decide.
With the changes to Missouri Worker’s Compensation law in 2005, employers found themselves being sued in civil court for occupational diseases. The goal for the employers was to avoid any liability at all for these types of work place injuries, but the courts found that if the employers did not want to be sued within the worker’s compensation system, then the civil courts would open their doors. Employers thought they won a major battle with that 2005 legislation, but it turns out in the Country and in this State, you can’t just avoid liability because you control the major branches of the Missouri legislature.
Since this time, employers and their money packing groups have fought against the exact thing they thought they wrote in their 2005 bill. They have found out that the grass was in fact not greener. Now they are all saying that it is common sense for occupational diseases to be in the worker’s compensation system. “The legislation brings common-sense changes, so that co-employee liability and occupational disease can be handled by our workers compensation system, as has been the case for decades, and not be used as anew money stream for enterprising trial attorneys,” Chamber President Daniel P. Mehan said in a statement.
So now all that is left is the Missouri House, and if they vote to override the veto by two-thirds, then the employers and their groups will again think that they have won. But have these groups learned nothing up to this point. Trial attorneys will continue to fight for the little guy, the injured worker and the just cause to try and provide justice in this often times unjust world.
