Modifies provisions relating to the payment of workers' compensation upon the death of an employee to allow payments to be made to family members when there are no dependents

HB 2983 changes workers' compensation rules so that if an employee dies and has no dependents, payments can go directly to certain family members instead of being held by the estate. It specifically allows payments to adult children (even if too old to be dependents), parents, grandparents, siblings, or other close relatives defined in the bill. The bill explicitly rejects a 2007 Missouri court case (Schoemehl v. Treasurer) that had previously limited these payments to dependents only. This affects families of deceased workers who currently might not receive compensation due to lack of qualifying dependents.