Can Your Employer Fire or Punish You for Filing a Missouri Workers’ Comp Claim?
No — and Missouri gives you a separate lawsuit if they do. Here’s how § 287.780 actually works.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Fear of the employer is the number one reason injured Missouri workers delay reporting injuries, downplay symptoms, or never file at all. So let’s put the actual law on the table — what it prohibits, what it doesn’t, and what evidence decides these cases.
THE BASIC RULE
Missouri statute — RSMo § 287.780 — says:
“No employer or agent shall discharge or discriminate against any employee for exercising any of his or her rights under this chapter when the exercising of such rights is the motivating factor in the discharge or discrimination.”
Three things to understand about that sentence:
1. “Exercising rights under this chapter” is broad. Reporting a work injury, filing a claim, seeking medical treatment, pursuing benefits — the protected activity is using the workers’ compensation system, not just formally filing a claim.
2. “Discharge or discriminate” covers more than firing. Retaliation can take the form of demotion, cut hours, undesirable reassignment, harassment, discipline that suddenly appears, denied promotions — adverse treatment because you used your comp rights.
3. It creates a separate civil lawsuit. A § 287.780 claim is not part of your comp case at the Division of Workers’ Compensation. It’s a civil action for damages, filed in court, on its own track, potentially with its own damages — and it can exist alongside your comp claim.
THE CAUSATION STANDARD: “MOTIVATING FACTOR”
This is where Missouri law has genuinely moved, and where older internet articles will mislead you.
For years, Missouri courts required workers to prove retaliation was the exclusive cause of the firing — a nearly impossible standard. In 2014, the Missouri Supreme Court (in Templemire v. W&M Welding) lowered it to “contributing factor.” Then, effective August 28, 2017, the legislature amended § 287.780 to set the current standard: “motivating factor”, which the statute defines to mean the exercise of comp rights “actually played a role in the discharge or discrimination and had a determinative influence on” it.
Plain English: you don’t have to prove your claim was the only reason you were fired — but you must prove it was a real reason with determinative influence, not merely one background factor among many. It’s a middle standard: harder than “contributing factor,” far more winnable than “exclusive cause.”
For injuries and firings in your own situation, the details matter enormously — this is a lawyer conversation, early.
WHAT RETALIATION IS NOT
Candor time, because false hope helps no one:
- Missouri is an at-will employment state. Your employer can generally terminate you for reasons good, bad, or none — as long as the reason isn’t a legally prohibited one. Being on comp does not immunize you from a layoff that would have happened anyway, discipline you genuinely earned, or a company closing.
- Being terminated while on comp is not automatically being terminated because of comp. The whole case lives in that distinction.
- Related but distinct: firing someone because of a disability may violate the ADA (if the employer has 15 or more employees) rather than (or in addition to) § 287.780. Retaliation for the claim and discrimination because of the injury are different legal theories with different rules — a good employment lawyer will evaluate both.
THE EVIDENCE THAT DECIDES THESE CASES
Retaliation is proven circumstantially, almost always. The recurring winning ingredients:
Timing. Fired ten days after reporting the injury? Timing alone rarely wins, but close timing plus anything else is powerful.
The paper trail’s before-and-after. Ten years of good reviews, then three write-ups in the six weeks after your claim — sudden documentation of a “performance problem” that never existed before is the classic pretext pattern.
Statements. The supervisor’s “this claim is costing us a fortune,” the safety manager’s comment about your “expensive shoulder,” texts, emails, remarks in meetings. Write them down when they happen: who, what, when, who heard it.
Comparators. Uninjured coworkers with the same attendance or the same rule violation who weren’t disciplined.
Shifting explanations. An employer whose stated reason changes over time is an employer whose stated reason is suspect.
NURSE ATTORNEY TIP: Document like a nurse — contemporaneously. Keep a dated log at home (never on a work device or work email): every comment about your claim, every schedule change, every write-up, every difference in how you’re treated. Save copies of reviews and policies you already lawfully have. Contemporaneous notes convert “he said something once” into evidence. And if termination comes, save everything from that day — the letter, the texts, the final paycheck stub.
DEADLINES AND DAMAGES
HOW THE TWO CASES TRAVEL TOGETHER
The comp claim (at the Division) and the retaliation case (in court) proceed separately but share facts, witnesses, and records — which means consistency across both is everything (the Insider Guide’s Chapter 10 rule applies double here). Strategy in one affects the other: what you testify to in a comp deposition will follow you into the civil case and vice versa. Ideally one lawyer — or two coordinating lawyers — sees the whole board, including any severance offer, which may attempt to release the retaliation claim for pennies.
A HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE
The people and numbers in this example are invented to show how the arithmetic works. They are not real clients, and no figure here says anything about what any actual case — including yours — is worth.
Teresa, a CNA with nine years of clean reviews, reports a lifting injury in March and files a comp claim. In April she’s written up for “attitude” — her first discipline ever. In May, her hours drop. In June she’s terminated for “attendance” — citing absences for authorized medical appointments. Her supervisor had twice mentioned the facility’s comp premiums going up.
Timing, a before-and-after paper trail, statements, and an attendance policy applied to injury-related absences no one else was disciplined for: that is what a motivating-factor case looks like. Teresa’s comp claim continues at the Division; her § 287.780 case is filed in circuit court; and her contemporaneous notebook — dates, quotes, names — does more work than any single witness.
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR LAWYER
- Does what happened to me fit § 287.780, the ADA, both — or neither?
- What’s my deadline to file, and does anything I’ve signed affect it?
- How does pursuing a retaliation case interact with my open comp claim?
- What should I be documenting starting today?
- Should I apply for unemployment — and how do I answer “reason for separation”?
- If they offer severance, what am I being asked to release?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Filing a comp claim is legally protected activity; punishing you for it — firing, demotion, hours, harassment — gives you a separate civil damages action under § 287.780. The current standard is “motivating factor”: your claim must have actually played a role with determinative influence. At-will employment is real, so these cases are won with evidence: timing, before-and-after records, statements, comparators, and your own contemporaneous notes. Deadlines are unforgiving — get advice early.
Educational content, not legal advice; no attorney-client relationship. Retaliation claims are intensely fact-specific — consult a licensed Missouri attorney about your situation.
