JOHNSON: WORKERS' COMP NEEDS OVERHAUL

The Missouri workers' compensation system is badly broken.

That is the opinion of Robert T. Johnson, the employer member of the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Commission.

"The system needs some help from the Missouri state legislature," Johnson told a group of more than 45 people who turned out Wednesday for a daylong Workers' Comp Conference at the Holiday Inn.

Johnson, a former state legislator and a homebuilder, has served on the commission since July 1993. He was one of eight of the state's experts on workers' compensation who spoke during the daylong program Wednesday to explain legal rights of employers and insurers under the workers' compensation system.

The Labor and Industrial Relations Commission consists of three members: an employer, an employee, and a neutral member.

"We hear a lot of wage compensation cases," said Johnson. "And, after seeing some of the decisions over the past year and a half, I see need for improvements."

Johnson said he has no quarrel with the concept of workers' compensation. "But it's turning out to be an employer-funded welfare system," he said. "Costs keep going up for employers. Something has to be done."

The majority of workers' compensation cases are settled and never reach the commission for a hearing. Johnson discussed his displeasure with some cases that did reach the hearing stage.

"One worker hurt his wrist while playing volleyball at a company picnic," said Johnson. "It wasn't broken and it wasn't hurt at the work place, but it cost the employer more than $20,000."

Another case cited by Johnson concerned a domestic dispute between two workers that resulted in one man striking another. "This was not a work-related accident," said Johnson. "But it wound up in a $12,000 workers' comp suit which was approved by the court."

Johnson also cited a "delayed-action" report that could net a drywall worker thousands of dollars. The worker fell from a scaffold. A year later he left his employer and started his own company. Six months later the worker filed a workers' compensation suit against his former employer.

"He was awarded permanent disability payments of $261 a month," said Johnson. "This man is in his 40s, so he can draw that money for another 20-plus years. The irony of all this is that the day the man's suit was approved he was working on a ladder putting up drywall."

Johnson said, "We need to take a serious look at some weaknesses of the workers' comp bill."

Rep. Pat Secrest agreed. Secrest, who was elected to the Missouri House in 1990 and is owner and co-founder of Secrest Engineered Products Inc., was also a speaker at the conference.

"We need to look at a number of items concerning the workers' comp bill," she said, citing medical costs containment, the definition of an accident, and lawyer involvement in workers' compensation suits.

Lawyer involvement in Missouri is almost twice what it is in other states. A survey conducted by National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc. revealed lawyer involvement in 81 percent of cases in Missouri compared to 40 to 50 percent in other states.

The recently-founded Missourians to Restore Fair Workers' Compensation will be pushing for improvement in workers' compensation, said Tony Reinhart, vice president of government affairs with the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, a sponsor of the conference.

The new group, which includes 57 business groups, will be pushing for new legislation next session to reduce lawyer involvement and better define "accident."