Court Opinion

ID: 9656640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:53:34.658204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:33.967575
License: Public Domain

LAURA DENVIR STITH, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I authored the dissenting opinion in Schoemehl v. Treasurer of the State of Missouri, 217 S.W.3d 900 (Mo. banc 2007), and continue to disagree with the interpretation of section 287.020.1 in the majority opinion in that case. That opinion is, however, the law, and it therefore governs this appeal. Predictability and reliance on the law militates against overruling precedent with each new case that comes along. The facts of this case are nearly on all fours with Schoemehl in relevant respects and, under Schoemehl, the dependents of the employee in this case are entitled to recover.
I disagree with the dissenting opinion’s claim that the majority’s reasoning here is inconsistent with this Court’s decision that dependents of employees are not eligible for benefits in cases in which the awards are final and not subject to further appeal. In those cases, the employee did not request that the award include such relief, or such relief was denied, and so these awards became final once no appeal was filed or once they were affirmed on appeal. There is no precedent for reopening final awards in workers’ compensation cases, or final judgments in other cases, every time the law is clarified in a way that might have benefited the plaintiff in those cases had they timely raised the point at issue. Were courts to do so, no case would ever be final.
Here, however, the award was on appeal and thus not yet final when the employee died. Therefore the dependents of the employees were not barred from seeking that the award provide that they receive the benefits which the employee would have received had he not died from unrelated causes, as permitted by Schoemehl. For this reason, I concur in the majority opinion and in the reasoning thereof.