 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Custer v. Hartford Insurance Co.8/23/2005
blic policy of the state as exemplified in the Compensation Law. The liberal construction that is meant here is that the law shall be applied so that a claimant will be considered within its scope if reasonably possible, and, that while the law should be liberally construed to that end, it should also be justly administered with equal equity to both the employer and the employee.
Id. at 753.
We have used some phrases that can hinder our efforts to understand and properly harmonize these principles. For instance, the majority opinion states that the law "is intended to extend its benefits to the largest possible class."
Although the Missouri Supreme Court has seldom chosen to use this phrase, our intermediate appellate courts have used it with increasing frequency, with two-thirds of the seventy-five reported cases in Missouri using this phrase having been issued since 1989. The phrase could be thought of as supporting the notion that every injury that could "possibly" be considered to be compensable should be held to be compensable.
Such notion, however, does not square with either the Workers' Compensation Act itself or with the Supreme Court's pronouncement as to the standard of review. See Hampton v. Big Boy Steel Erection, 121 S.W.3d 220, 223 (Mo. banc 2003):
There is nothing in the constitution or section 287.495.1 that requires a reviewing court to view the evidence and all favorable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the award.
Id.
The notion that "any question" or "any doubt" as to compensability is to be resolved in favor of the employee originated, at least in part, I believe, from cases commenting on the liberal construction to be applied to the terms of the act. In Dauster v. Star Manufacturing Co., 145 S.W.2d 499, 503 (Mo. App. 1940), for instance, the court expressed the view that, in accordance with the broad construction enjoined by section 287.800, any question as to the meaning of a term of the act should be resolved in favor of the claimant. The phraseology was modified in subsequent cases (citing Dauster ) so that now it is not uncommon for the Commission or a court to say that "all doubts [implying 'all doubts of any kind,' not merely doubts about the meaning of a word or a phrase in the statute] should be resolved in favor of the employee." See, e.g., Baer v. City of Springfield, 366 S.W.2d 469, 471 (Mo. App. 1963); Rogers v. Pacesetter Corp., 972 S.W.2d 540, 542 (Mo. App. 1998); Brenneisen v. Leach' s Standard Serv. Station, 806 S.W.2d 443, 445 (Mo. App. 1991).
While the Missouri Supreme Court has occasionally used this terminology, it has used it only in connection with actually construing a term of the act, see, e.g., Wolfgeher v. Wagner Cartage Service, Inc ., 646 S.W.2d 781,783 (Mo. 1983) (construing the term "accident" broadly), or in obiter dictum, where the terminology did not govern the result, see Kelley v. Sohio Chemical Co ., 392 S.W.255, 259 (Mo. 1965) (upholding a denial of compensation ).
Although in actual practice the courts do not always resolve "all doubts" in favor of the claimant, we sometimes give the impression that the rule we are following is that compensation must be allowed whenever it is possible to conceive of any kind of basis for compensability. This impression stands in contrast to the earlier suggestion that while the act is to be liberally construed with a view to the public welfare, the law should be "justly administered with equal equity to both employer and employee." Reed v. Kansas City Wholesale Grocery Co., 156 S.W.2d 747, 753 (Mo. App. 1941). Neither liberal construction of statutory terms with a view to the public
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Missouri Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|