JEFFERSON CITY - Missouri's worker compensation system would be revamped under a measure heard by a House committee Wednesday.
Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, is sponsoring the bill, and said he wants to see the worker's compensation system return to its "original intent" -- a no-fault system for those injured on the job.
"This bill is not designed to keep people from getting worker's comp when they truly deserve it," Wilson said, saying the current system had become akin to "Calvin-ball," the game played by cartoon characters Calvin and Hobbes. The game consisted of making up the rules as you went along.
"If the rules are made clear, it benefits everybody," Wilson said. "When there's this gray area, employers feel they have to fight for every inch, and you wind up with an adversarial system."
Missouri's worker's compensation law, first enacted in 1925, was originally designed to avoid just that. The system was created as a compromise between business and labor interests -- where workers gave up their right to sue employers in civil court (where they could earn unlimited punitive damages) and businesses agreed to a "no-fault" system, where an employee could file a claim no matter who was to blame for an accident.
The idea was to set up an alternative to employees having to take their bosses to court. Instead, a special administrative judge would hear the claim and decide on the damages to be awarded. The benefit for employers was that unlike in civil court, no large punitive damages could be awarded in the worker's compensation system -- only economic damages. At the same time, employees could more easily get their money, and did not have to enter into a long, drawn-out process.
The system has gone through a number of modification since its inception, most recently in 1993, and Wilson said he thinks it's time for another change. While he said the bill had "a long way to go" before reaching it final stage, Wilson's aim is to limit who can qualify for the worker's compensation system.
"The work should be the prevailing factor over all others," Wilson said. "If you hurt your back playing golf, you shouldn't be getting worker's comp."
Currently, the law requires an employee's work to be a "substantial" factor in causing the injury. Wilson's bill would require it to be "the dominant factor." Also, the current law instructs judges to use a "liberal" application of the law, favoring the employee. The bill would instead instruct administrative judges to employ an "impartial" application, theoretically favoring neither side.
But opponents argue these measures would make it even more difficult for workers injured on the job to get the help they needed, and shift the power substantially in favor of businesses. Those involved in the system also say that administrative judges will have a very hard a time determining what "the dominant" factor actually means, and that the definition will likely have to be clarified by the courts down the road.
Mark Moreland, representing the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, said the whole point of the worker's compensation system was to make it easier for workers to get help, in exchange for giving up their rights to sue for punitive damages.
"That was the trade-off," he said.
Moreland, who testified before the Workforce Development and Workplace Safety committee Wednesday, said excluding injured workers from the system would only force them to head to civil court instead.
"A liberal construction is good for both the employee and the employer," Moreland said. "Because it excludes more people from the civil jury system, where they can seek very high damages."
Opponents also raised concerns about one of the bill's provisions to change the role of administrative judges within the worker's compensation system. Currently, those judges are appointed for life. But under the proposed law they would have their terms limited and would have to come before the Senate every four years to be reappointed.
"It takes away their (the judges) impartiality," Moreland told the committee. "If you put them up there before the Senate, you're saying they now risk their jobs if you don't like what they do."
But supporters of the measure said they wanted the legislature to have more oversight over the judges.
"I don't think anyone should be appointed for anything for life," said Rep. Steve Hunter, R-Joplin, after the hearing. "It holds them accountable for their actions."
Hunter said he thought the judges already had political views, and that bringing under the legislature's auspices "couldn't make it any worse than it is now."
Opponents were equally adamant that it would be a disaster.
"Do I fear that as we do `judges on parade' here at Senate it will become political?" Moreland said at the hearing. "You bet I do."
The bill is expected to be approved by the Workforce Development and Workplace Safety
committee on Monday, and will then make its way to the full House for consideration.
A similar bill passed the House last year, but was defeated in the Senate. Wilson said he expects the bill to pass the Senate as well this year, and that most of the final details of the legislation will likely be worked out in the conference committee between the two chambers.