Court Opinion

ID: 9690205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:56:38.822616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:54.073689
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
As I read the clear implications of the majority opinion, it is obvious that said opinion would, by judicial suggestion, have the South Dakota State Legislature amend the Worker’s Compensation Law of this state. Apparently the underlying theme is based upon some vacuous social result. In my opinion, social policy should be the function of our state lawmakers. In essence, it appears the majority opinion has subjective design rather than objective interpretation of the pertinent state code sections.
Mr. Justice Felix Frankfurter, in a scholarly dissertation, found at 47 Colum.L.Rev. 527, 527-34, 538-45 (1947), expressed:
To go beyond it [the statute] is to usurp a power which our democracy has lodged in its elected legislature. The great *375judges have constantly admonished their brethren of the need for discipline in observing the limitations. A judge must not rewrite a statute, neither to enlarge nor to contract it. Whatever temptations the statesmanship of policy-making might wisely suggest, construction must eschew interpolation and evisceration. He must not read in by way of creation. He must not read out except to avoid patent nonsense or internal contradiction.
There is grist for the mill in the many authorities cited by Justice Wuest. They are absolutely pertinent to illegally employed minors. We expressed, inter alia, in South Dakota Medical Services, Inc. v. Minnesota Mutual Fire & Casualty, cited by Justice Wuest, that we must further the best interests of workers in general, despite the protestations of a particular employee who seeks to avoid coverage and then gamble upon the exigencies of civil litigation. The Utah Supreme Court in Bingham v. Lagoon Cory., 707 P.2d 678, 679 (Utah 1985) expressed that a policy of inclusion must be applied in cases involving minors allegedly employed in violation of child labor laws. This was the rationale:
[The Worker’s Compensation Act], while barring tort actions, protects minors and covers them, even if they are illegally employed. A minor who suffers injury ... is compensated without regard to notions or fault. Without the expanded scope of that section, [the minor employee] would be required to prove at trial [the employer’s] act or failure to act was the direct and proximate cause of her injury. By including illegally employed minors within its coverage, worker’s compensation insures that an insured minor employee will be compensated for injuries without the expense or uncertainty of suing in tort, (emphasis supplied mine).
Unfortunately, the majority opinion favors one way (supporting a position announced by four respectable authorities) and then holds another way (“We hesitate to adopt it”) by expressing three “reasons.” These three “reasons” are all suggestions to our State Legislature by phraseology that the social policy be (1) “modified” or (2) employs language such as “the legislature may wish” and (3) further expresses “until such time as the legislature acts." These are plainly not legal reasons. They are not rationale; rather, they are subjective, social design.
Chief Judge Cardozo, one of the great American masters of the law, expressed on such type of judicial function:
We do not pause to consider whether a statute differently conceived and framed would yield results more consonant with fairness and reason. We take this statute as we find it.
Robert Jensen’s employment was covered under the existing South Dakota Worker’s Compensation Law. There is a great deal to be said, as I conclude, for applying the facts of this case to existing law and to insure that minors similarly situated will, indeed, recover for his/her work related injuries. To follow the path of the law, as suggested by the majority opinion, could be a dangerous and expensive journey creating unforetold expense and uncertainty via the tort/trial route, for minors. Lawmaking, by the Legislature, knows little bounds, except by unconstitutional declaration by the judicial branch; a judge is confined by the record in the case and the law that exists at the time the cause of action arose. Have we, as an appellate body, the right, within the triad of constitutional government, to suggest social policy? I think not.
HERTZ, Circuit Court Judge, Acting as a Supreme Court Justice, joins this special writing.