South Dakota Supreme Court Reverses Workers’ Compensation Bad Faith Decision and Remands for a Retrial
The South Dakota Supreme Court recently decided Fern Johnson v. United Parcel Service and Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance, 2020 S.D. 39, holding that SDCL 62-7-33 is the exclusive means by which a final decision from the Department of Labor (the “Department”) may be modified. Previously, SDCL 62-7-1 and SDCL 62-1-1(7) were routinely used to revisit and, if appropriate, deny open medical benefits when determining if the work injury remained a major contributing cause of the…