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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.--Missouri's Supreme Court has ruled that employees excluded from the state's workers compensation system by a definition of accidental injury that lawmakers narrowed in 2005 now can sue their employers.
The court, however, also ruled against 71 labor unions and their allies in the Tuesday decision in Missouri Alliance for Retired Americans vs. Department of Labor.
It did so by rejecting labor's arguments that the 2005 amendments to the state's workers comp system are unconstitutional, court records show. Labor backers had argued that the amendments limited the rights of injured workers.
"The removal of certain injuries and accidents from the scope of the act places workers who have suffered those injuries outside the workers' compensation system," the court ruled. "Those workers now can recover under the common law as they no longer fall within the exclusivity provision" of the workers comp law.
But which cases now have remedies under the Missouri workers comp system or in civil court need to be decided on a case-by-case basis, the state Supreme Court said.