There is great news for South Dakota employees’ sustaining a work-related injury and have more than one job. The South Dakota Supreme Court has recently determined that an employee’s wages from all jobs could be used to calculate his or her average weekly wage for purposes of workers’ compensation benefits. The decision comes after a South Dakota employee appealed the administrative law judge’s determination that she was not allowed to aggregate her wages from her three separate employments in the calculation of her average weekly wage after she sustained work-related injuries when working for Cinna Bakers. At the time of the work-related injury, Ms. Wheeler was engaged in three occupations and had obligations set for all three job positions. However, the administrative law judge determined that only the wages from Cinna Bakers was going to be used for the calculation of wages since it was where the injuries occurred.
During the court decision process, it was noted that several states do allow aggregation of wages when job positions are “similar” or “related,” while other states allow aggregation of wages regardless of whether the job positions are “similar” or “related” to the employment in which the work-related injury occurred. The South Dakota Workers’ Compensation statutes were reviewed and analyzed to determine whether total earnings include the wages of all concurrently held jobs or just the wages of the job where the injury occurred and it was concluded that total earnings include all wages of all held jobs.