Missouri HB 1716: Modifies provisions relating to workers' compensation

Bill Text

SECOND REGULAR SESSION
HOUSE COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR
HOUSE BILL NO. 1716
101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY
3417H.02C DANA RADEMAN MILLER, Chief Clerk
AN ACT
To repeal sections 287.020, 287.067, 287.140, and 287.270, RSMo, and to enact in lieu
thereof four new sections relating to workers' compensation.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:
Section A. Sections 287.020, 287.067, 287.140, and 287.270, RSMo, are repealed
2 and four new sections enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as sections 287.020, 287.067,
3 287.140, and 287.270, to read as follows:
287.020. 1. The word "employee" as used in this chapter shall be construed to mean
2 every person in the service of any employer, as defined in this chapter, under any contract of
3 hire, express or implied, oral or written, or under any appointment or election, including
4 executive officers of corporations. Except as otherwise provided in section 287.200, any
5 reference to any employee who has been injured shall, when the employee is dead, also
6 includehisorherdependents,andotherpersonstowhomcompensationmaybepayable. The
7 word "employee" shall also include all minors who work for an employer, whether or not
8 suchminorsareemployedinviolationoflaw,andallsuchminorsareherebymadeoffullage
9 for all purposes under, in connection with, or arising out of this chapter. The word
10 "employee" shall not include an individual who is the owner, as defined in section 301.010,
11 and operatorof a motor vehicle which isleased or contracted witha driver to a for-hire motor
12 carrier operating within a commercial zone as defined in section 390.020 or as described in
13 section 390.041, or operating under a certificate issued by the Missouri department of
14 transportation or by the United States Department of Transportation, or any of its
15 subagencies. The word "employee" also shall not include any person performing services
16 for board, lodging, aid, or sustenance received from any religious, charitable, or relief
17 organization.
EXPLANATION — Matter enclosed in bold-faced brackets [thus] in the above bill is not enacted and is
intended to be omitted from the law. Matter in bold-face type in the above bill is proposed language.

18 2. The word "accident" as used in this chapter shall mean an unexpected traumatic
19 event or unusual strain identifiable by time and place of occurrence and producing at the time
20 objective symptoms of an injury caused by a specific event during a single work shift. An
21 injury is not compensable because work was a triggering or precipitating factor.
22 3. (1) In this chapter the term "injury" is hereby defined to be an injury which has
23 arisen out of and in the course of employment. An injury by accident is compensable only if
24 the accident was the prevailing factor in causing [both] the injury, the resulting medical
25 condition [and], the disability, and the need for treatment. "The prevailing factor" is
26 defined to be the primary factor, in relation to any other factor, causing [both] the injury, the
27 resulting medical condition [and], the disability, and the need for treatment.
28 (2) An injury shall be deemed to arise out of and in the course of the employment
29 only if:
30 (a) It is reasonably apparent, upon consideration of all the circumstances, that the
31 accident is the prevailing factor in causing the injury; and
32 (b) It does not come from a hazard or risk unrelated to the employment to which
33 workers would have been equally exposed outside of and unrelated to the employment in
34 normal nonemployment life.
35 (3) An injury resulting directly or indirectly from idiopathic causes is not
36 compensable.
37 (4) A cardiovascular, pulmonary, respiratory, or other disease, or cerebrovascular
38 accident or myocardial infarction suffered by a worker is an injury only if the accident is the
39 prevailing factor in causing the resulting medical condition.
40 (5) The terms "injury" and "personal injuries" shall mean violence to the physical
41 structure of the body and to the personal property which is used to make up the physical
42 structure of the body, such as artificial dentures, artificial limbs, glass eyes, eyeglasses, and
43 other prostheses which are placed in or on the body to replace the physical structure and such
44 disease or infection as naturally results therefrom. These terms shall in no case except as
45 specificallyprovidedinthischapterbeconstruedtoincludeoccupationaldiseaseinanyform,
46 nor shall they be construed to include any contagious or infectious disease contracted during
47 the course of the employment, nor shall they include death due to natural causes occurring
48 while the worker is at work.
49 4. "Death"when mentioned asa basisfor the right to compensation means only death
50 resulting from such violence and its resultant effects occurring within three hundred weeks
51 after the accident;except that in cases ofoccupational disease, the limitation of threehundred