Show-Me a Bad Ruling

Saturday, January 27, 2007 | 0

With all due sympathy to a local widow who lost her husband three years ago, a compassionate Missouri Supreme Court made a bad law when it awarded her a continuation of her husband's workers compensation payments after he died.

At age 76, her husband sustained a debilitating knee injury while working at a local marina. He was awarded a workers' compensation claim but died of unrelated causes only a month after the checks began coming. As was customary at the time, his checks stopped immediately.

His widow sued. More than two years later, a 4-3 decision recently awarded a continuation of the payments until her death.

This particular award is small, only $221.26 per month and, given the widow's age, probably won't cost the insurance company very much between now and the end of her life. However, this precedent could become extremely expensive. Picture, for instance, a fully disabled Missouri worker, age 35, who dies in a car accident. His widow, if the same age, could receive payments for 40 years or more.

It's not as though our fictional widow would be left penniless at her husband's death if not for this ruling. The federal Social Security system makes payments to widows of workers, and their school-aged children. Under the social security system, then, their financial viability is assured. (We would also hope that this fictional family has some sort of private insurance policy on its primary bread-winner.)

Why, then, is this a wrong decision? Because it shifts the burden for these payments from the federal government -- where it belongs -- to private insurers and ultimately to Missouri businesses. It will drive up the cost of goods and services in Missouri and put our state at an economic disadvantage. It will add to the cost of doing business in our state and will become a disincentive for employers to locate jobs and businesses here. This ruling could even dampen Missouri employers' enthusiasm for hiring older workers.

The Supreme Court judge who wrote this opinion cited as its foundation a state law that says injury payments shall cease 'unless there are surviving dependents at the time of death.' We encourage the state legislature to change that law so that Missouri businesses don't find themselves guaranteeing a life insurance policy for disabled workers who die of non-work-related causes.

This editorial first appeared in the Lake Sun Leader. The newspaper's Web site is http://www.lakesunleader.com.

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