FIRST REGULAR SESSION
HOUSE BILL NO. 839
91ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY
INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE SECREST.
Read 1st time February 20, 2001, and 1000 copies ordered printed.
TED WEDEL, Chief Clerk
AN ACT
To repeal section 287.800, RSMo 2000, relating to workers' compensation, and to enact in lieu thereof one new section relating to the same subject.
Section A. Section 287.800, RSMo 2000, is repealed and one new section enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 287.800, to read as follows:
287.800. All of the provisions of this chapter shall be impartially and not liberally construed with a view to the public
welfare, [and a substantial compliance therewith shall be sufficient to give effect to rules, regulations, requirements,
awards, orders or decisions of the division and the commission, and they shall not be declared inoperative, illegal or void
for any omission of a technical nature in respect thereto] in order to provide fairness for both employees and employers
and to promote ever-increasing economic vitality for this state. The facts in workers' compensation cases are not to
be interpreted liberally in favor of either the rights of the injured worker or the rights of the employer. It is the
specific intent of the legislature that workers' compensation cases shall be decided on the merits and that the
common law rule of "liberal construction" based on the supposed "remedial" basis of workers' compensation
legislation shall not apply in such cases.
Missouri House of Representatives