Missouri law provides that the surviving spouse of a public employee who is killed in the line of duty be entitled to a death benefit equal to half of the deceased employee’s final average compensation.   The statute, adopted in 1969, did not define “spouse,” but was supplemented in 2004 with a definition of “spouse” in accord with the newly-enacted state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

When a Missouri state highway patrolman, Corporal Dennis Engelhard, was … <Read More>