Missouri judge rules that unborn fetus is not an employee, allows wrongful death suit
A Missouri judge has delivered a blow to a government agency bizarrely claiming in a lawsuit that the fetus of a pregnant worker killed on the job was an employee because life is defined in the state as beginning at conception.
Kaitlyn Anderson, 25, was six months pregnant when she and a fellow Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) employee were killed while doing road work in Nov. 2021, CBS News reported.
Anderson’s unborn child – a son she already named Jaxx – also died.
Because a protective vehicle was not in place to protect workers at the time of the accident, Anderson’s family tried to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of Jaxx, citing that life and legal rights begin at conception under Missouri law.
But the MoDOT argued that Jaxx met the definition of an employee under state regulations, which includes dependents in the event that the worker has died, FOX 2 Now said.
Because Jaxx’s personhood rights began at conception, they argued that he should be considered Anderson’s dependent, a move that would prevent a wrongful death suit from being brought against them.
“What they’re hoping is they don’t pay anything,” Anderson’s family’s attorney, Andrew Mundwiller, told the outlet at the time.
Mundwiller noted that MoDOT had already refused to pay out Kaitlyn’s workers’ comp because she was unmarried and Jaxx did not survive.
“Who the hell would argue that someone who hasn’t been born works for them and is a dependent?” he asked CBS News.
“I would say it stretches the bounds of the law.”
In the March 29 decision, Judge Joseph Dueker from St. Louis County agreed with Mundwiller’s assessment.
“(MoDOT’s) statutory interpretation of the workers’ compensation law to exclude Jaxx Jarvis’ claims here would lead to an extremely absurd result,” the ruling read.
“Jaxx Jarvis’ independent claims as an unborn child are just as strong as if he was outside his mother’s womb next to her at the time of his death from the accident.”
A trial is now set for March 2024.
“[The judge] made his decision on what would have been Jaxx’s first birthday, so I’m taking that as a sign from Kaitlyn that she’s going to help me fight MoDOT, and she’s going to help me get through this,” Anderson’s mother, Tonya Musskopf, told FOX 2 Now from her home in Florida.
Jaxx’s case also inspired the introduction of a bill to the state legislature called “Jaxx’s Law,” which would forbid unborn fetuses from being considered employees in wrongful death suits and other civil actions.
Experts warn that similar debacles could emerge in other states, as personhood definitions are broadened by the downfall of Roe v. Wade last June.
The landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision, which federally enshrined abortion rights, ruled that a person did not include unborn fetuses in the context of individual rights, CBS News explained.
A few states, including Missouri in 1986, subsequently passed laws clarifying that life ultimately began at conception. These broad boundaries are regularly tested in court, as when a Missouri child molester tried to argue that his victim’s age should be calculated from her conception instead of her birth, thus making her about the statutory age limit.
The court rebuked his argument.
When the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the nation’s highest court also failed to address when personhood rights started.
“People will start to utilize that and figure out ways to have it benefit their particular circumstances,” Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice, told CBS.
