If you are injured at work, how long do you have to notice your symptoms before losing your ability to collect workers’ compensation?

The Missouri Supreme Court wrestled with that question on Sept. 20 in the case of a nurse who felt lower back pain hours after she moved a heavy cart and was eventually found permanently and totally disabled.

The claimant, Jeanne E. Harper, said she felt a “pull” when she moved the 100-pound medicine cart against a wall. At first she felt no pain, but later her back began to hurt while she was making her rounds. Despite treatment, the pain never fully went away, and Harper said it eventually drove her to resign.

Since its passage in 1926, a workplace “accident” has been defined as an occurrence “producing at the time objective symptoms of an injury.” The legislature’s 2005 overhaul of the state’s workers’ compensation laws left the phrase untouched. But the revised law also requires courts to strictly construe the statute’s language.

Kevin Leahy of Leahy, Wright & Associates in St. Louis, an attorney for Harper’s employer, Springfield Rehabilitation and Care Center, argued that the pushing of the medicine cart was a “red herring” and that Harper noticed symptoms only while walking around.

“By her admissions, she did not sustain an accident rolling a cart,” he said. He argued that a decision in her favor would open up employers to claims for soft tissue injuries without clear evidence of their cause.

But Harper’s attorney, Randy...

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