BY: GRANT GREEN
Kaitlyn Anderson was nearly six months pregnant and an employee for the Missouri Department of Transportation when a vehicle struck and killed her at a worksite.
MoDOT has attempted to claim Anderson’s unborn child, Jaxx, as an employee, which would make the case a worker’s compensation issue rather than a wrongful death suit. Workers’ compensation laws in the state of Missouri shield employers from wrongful death lawsuits when an employee dies on the job.
During a hearing Tuesday, state representatives expressed support for a bill that would prohibit businesses or state agencies from considering an “unborn child” as an employee in a civil action.
“I think that if an unborn fetus is an employee, then every pregnant MoDOT employee should be paid double,” said state Rep. Renee Reuter, a Republican from Imperial.
Anderson’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit. However, in court filings MoDOT claims Jaxx was their employee, according to reporting by KMOV-TV.
Tonya Musskopf, Anderson’s mother, told the Missourian she made over 150 calls to different legislators before Republican state Rep. Dean Van Schoiack of Savannah took up her issue and drafted legislation. Musskopf and other family members attended the hearing, offering emotional testimony.
“My baby got hit hard, she was almost unrecognizable,” Musskopf said.
Van Schoiack says he can’t believe MoDOT would try to exploit this loophole.
“That baby didn’t have a driver’s license or Social Security ID, how on earth can he be claimed as an employee?” he said.
Another employee, James Brooks, also died and a third worker, Michael Brown, went to the hospital after all three were hit by a vehicle.
Brown, who testified Tuesday, said MoDOT claiming the baby as a employee is nothing short of “gross negligence.”
According to previous coverage, Anderson had requested a safer position when she found out she was pregnant. MoDOT did move her out of buffer trucks where she had been hit three times. Brown says the workers were striping Route 231.
A Missouri Supreme Court trial is set for March.
This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian.