MSCFF FINAL LEGISLATIVE SUMMARY
by Legislative Director Mark Woolbright
The 2006 legislative session came to the conclusion with a great deal of time and effort exerted but unfortunately not a whole lot of positive statute changing end results. We felt that we were well positioned most of the session with our priority legislation. Simultaneously, throughout the session we also had to combat or convert bad legislation into either killing or crafting better legislation. Ultimately, no real MSCFF priority legislation was passed, but no detrimental legislation was passed either.
Our major opposition this session was Senate Speaker Pro Tem Gibbons, the Missouri and St. Louis County Municipal League. The MSCFF had a fair amount of support with our bills and amendments on both sides of the isle in the House and Senate. As our over all summary indicated 167 bills out of over 2000 pieces of filed legislation passed through the legislative process. Most all of our key legislation was either killed in the last week or withdrawn on the last day due to the Senate in-fighting over the Voter ID bill. Listed below is a summary of essential events or bill actions:
HB 1638 Representative. Bruns: “Fireman's Rule” creates a cause of action for injury to emergency personnel caused by the tortious actions of another person. The language was amended onto Sen. Englers SB 666. The language was stripped in conference committee. Representative Bruns added the amendment with the deletion of “willful act and omissions” and added the word “negligence”. We thought this would satisfy Sen. Ridgeway concerns but then she wanted us to incorporate “intentional” into our verbiage instead of any of the aforementioned. We did not agree Sen. Ridgeway promised to filibuster the bill when brought back to the Senate with any of our language. Our attorneys advised us with anything less then what we had in the bill would be a step in the wrong direction. Currently, Missouri case law is proving to expand what legal action first responders can not only pursue but also win, thus we would not want to lock ourselves into a new restrictive state statute.
HB 1128 Representative Wildberger: adds certain types of cancer to the list of diseases presumed to have been suffered in the line of duty for pension purposes. This bill was heard in committee but we were unable to advance the bill out of committee. We attempted early into the session to amend this language onto either pension bills HB 1305 or HB 1306 but the bill sponsor Rep. Smith thought that our language was to controversial for his bills. Both of his pension bills eventually died.
HB 1030 Rep. Bob Johnson: this turned out to be the omnibus local government bill that included:
This bill very late in the session died for reasons of getting to heavy. Sen. Bartle, the bill handler in the Senate laid the bill over and it was never brought back up. But, before the bill was laid over Sen. Gibbons showed his hand and stripped all the fire district and municipality public safety tax off the bill.
HB 1306 Representative Smith: Pension/Retirement bill that was a horrible bill when filed in the beginning of the session. Fortunately, Rep. Smith listened and adhered to almost every one of our concerns throughout the legislative session. Unfortunately, the bill died on the last day of the session due to the hardball that the Republican Senate leadership played with the Voter ID bill. Included in the bill were defined benefit protections (for employees and employers) for public entities, provisions that defined benefit plans could not easily be eliminated or terminated by employers. Also, the addition of two firefighters to serve as plan trustees along with the three existing board members. The two firefighters would have all the binding authority as the elected fire board members. Lastly, pension deficient public entities would have liens placed on their political subdivision by the state if proper distributions to the plan were not made over a descending three-year period.
SB 968 Senator Green: This bill would have required new and existing fire department to annually register with the state fire marshals office. The bill was removed off of the consent in the house after a Senate amendment was made that stated any creation of a new fire district in St. Louis County must acquire permission from all adjacent fire districts.
SB 666 Senator Engler: This Senate bill was amended in the house that would have allowed City of St. Louis Fire Fighters residency relief. Only one City of St. Louis House Representative. supported St. Louis County Representative Portwoods amendment. Never the less the amendment received enough votes and passed through the House. The MSCFF did not take a position on the matter due to membership differences and eboard directives. The residency amendment language was eventually stripped in conference committee. Ultimately, Senator Engler volunteer fire fighter bill did not make it through the process.
SB 610 Senator Crowell: Requires employee authorization for public employee labor unions to withhold fees from paychecks. This bill did not make it out of committee.
HB 1464 Representative Hunter: Requires expenditures for political activity by labor organizations to be made exclusively from a fund established for that purpose. This bill did not make it out of committee.
HB 1465 Representative Hunter: Requires labor unions not covered by the federal Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act to publicly disclose information concerning their finances.
HB 2154 Representative Hunter: Employee Rights or the free loader bill. This bill would not require an employee to join the union, pay dues, assessments or other fees to a labor organization.
* It should be noted that a number of Representative Wildbergers sponsored MSCFF bills were assigned to the Work Force Development and Work Force Safety committee which Representative Hunter Chairs. Representative Hunter refused to bring up any of our bills for a hearing.
The MSCFF lobbied, testified and observed a number of other bills and/or amendments including but not limited too: annexations, TIFs, residential inspections, training requirements and fees, EMS licensure fees, first responder immunity, existing work compensation heart and lung protections, workers compensation “on call”, public safety survivor benefits, right-of –way and failure- to- yield to emergency vehicles penalties, filling of vacancies on fire district boards by circuit court, first responder testing for infectious diseases, specifically Hepatitis C, tax abatements, eminent domain, surcharges and authorizations for central dispatching centers, imposed insurance fees for emergency management, transfer of the Unit of EMS to the Board of Registration and Licensing, volunteer firefighter job protection acts and a number of other volunteer related issues/bills, EMS peer review committees, telemarketing and do not call list (for MSCFF fundraising reasons).
Truly Agreed To and Finally Passed Bills:
HB 983 Representative Meadows: This bill requires United States and Missouri state flags to be flown at half staff on all government building every year on September 11.
HB 1344 Representative Villa: Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis
This bill expands the investment options of the Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis by allowing the board of trustees to invest in property of any kind, real or personal.
This bill contains an emergency clause.
HB 1509 Representative Bruns: Division of Fire Safety
This bill expands the duties of the State Fire Marshall in the Division of Fire Safety within the Department of Public Safety to include the voluntary training of inspectors and public or private employees or volunteers in the field of emergency response, rescue, and fire prevention or preparedness. The State Fire Marshall is required to establish and maintain a voluntary training and certification and certification program based upon nationally recognized standards and is authorized to promulgate rules and regulations in order to administer the provisions of the bill.
SB 872 Senator Gibbons: This bill specifies that a person commits the crimes of involuntary manslaughter in the second degree and assault in the second degree if he or she fails to yield the right of way to an emergency vehicle and, in doing so, acts with criminal negligence to cause the death of any person authorized to operate an emergency vehicle while in the performance of his or her official duties. The bill increases the penalty for failing to yield the right of way to an emergency vehicle from a class B misdemeanor to a class A misdemeanor.
The bill also requires children of certain ages, weight, eights, and heights to be restrained by a child passenger restraint system, booster seat or safety belt.
SB 893 Senator Scott: This bill prohibits an ambulance or fire protection district from reducing the rate of the districts sales tax. Currently, the county collector is prohibited from reducing the districts sales tax.
Any city, town, village, county, or fire protection district in St. Louis County that has implemented an ambulance or fire sales tax is authorized to use those funds for expenditures on equipment and services, excluding salaries, wages and benefits, by any city, town, village, county or fire protection district which contracts with a joint central fire and emergency dispatching service.
IMPORTANT COURT CASE CONCERNING THE FIREMANS' RULE !!!
Officer wins suit over injuries on meth raid
By William C. Lhotka Of the Post-Dispatch 02/26/2005
A St. Louis County police officer won $600,000 from a homeowner Friday in a civil suit over injuries he suffered investigating a suspected methamphetamine lab near Eureka.
The judge said later he had never heard of a case like it.
A St. Louis County jury found in favor of Sgt. David Ryan and against Violet Rademacher, one of the owners of the property.
Ryan's attorney, Rick Barry, argued that Rademacher had a duty to warn Ryan of dangerous chemicals for meth production on the premises. That theory, as it applies to public safety workers, makes the case the first of its kind in the county and at least rare nationally.
Judge Robert S. Cohen said he had not known of another one in his 31 years on the bench. "Around the country, with drug raids and meth labs and anhydrous ammonia and explosions, this could be an area of law that will be developing," he suggested.
The judge speculated that an appeal would probably use the legal argument that has usually controlled such situations - that police and firefighters accept risks of their work and cannot sue property owners for line of duty injuries.
County officers went to the home Sept. 7, 2000, to investigate a neighbor's report of smelling ether, a chemical used in making meth, from a half mile away. They said Violet Rademacher consented to the search.
Ryan said he was checking out a jug on the floor of a shed when the spout popped open and anhydrous ammonia fumes engulfed him, causing what he said were permanent injuries.
An appeals court previously removed David Rademacher, Violet's ex- husband, as a defendant, saying that since he wasn't home at the time of the raid he had no legal obligation to warn Ryan of danger. But that court allowed the case against Violet Rademacher to proceed to trial.
Defense attorney Dan Wilke said she was not a criminal, that her ex-husband was, and that she should not be punished for his misdeeds.
Although it did not come up in the civil trial, David Rademacher later went to prison on a meth-related conviction, and his wife pleaded no contest and got probation.
In closing arguments, Wilke played down Ryan's injuries, noting that the officer was back on duty in two weeks and since has risen to sergeant. Wilke also challenged Ryan's claim that the spout just popped open when he picked up the jug.
Mark Ezra, a mechanical engineer, conducted tests for Wilke on similar jug and concluded the spout could only be opened by hand.
Moreover, Wilke said Ryan is an expert on meth labs and their risks, and should have known to wear the protective suit he carried in his car.
Ryan testified that he and fellow officers had no evidence of hidden dangers and saw no indication they were looking for a "hot lab," where the manufacture of meth was in progress.
He said he has suffered from asthma since the incident; a doctor said Ryan's lungs were scarred by the fumes.
Michelle Ryan testified that her husband is susceptible to frequent colds, can't wrestle and play football at any length with his two sons, and doesn't have enough breath for the long hikes he used to take with her.
"The reason Violet is the one being sued," said Barry to the jury, "is she is the one who was on the premises and she had the ability to give a minimal warning and she chose not to."
Barry suggested that Violet Rademacher knew about her husband's meth making and could have warned Ryan without implicating herself. "All she had to say is, 'Don't go in there, or I wouldn't go in there if I were you,'" he added.
The total amount of the jury award, signed by 10 of the 12 jurors, was $750,000. The jury found Ryan 20 percent at fault for his injury and Violet Rademacher 80 percent at fault. Nine votes are needed to sustain a civil verdict.