Court Opinion

ID: 9679326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:49:25.891756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:12.617946
License: Public Domain

*136HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
Although agreeing with this decision substantially, both in spirit and substance, I would not allow a recovery of prejudgment interest and I would allow a recovery for room, board, and travel expense in the sum of $6,020.80 incurred on behalf of the employee by her mother. These expenses resulted from procuring medical services, treatment, and supplies for the employee.
Addressing the expenses incurred on behalf of the employee, my basic reason is that they were incurred on behalf of the employee to keep her alive. Employee was hospitalized from the time of her accident on October 9, 1972, until May 1974. She was first hospitalized at Watertown, South Dakota, and thereafter transferred to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where she there remained until January 1973. Thereafter, she was transferred to Bismarck, North Dakota, where she was hospitalized for three months. Due to her total invalidism and general dehabilitation, she was transferred to the Sister Kenny Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and there spent one year in rehabilitation. Employee, upon leaving Sister Kenny Institute, was then transferred to Grand Forks Rehabilitation Center, Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she remained for three months until May 1974. She was then transported to the home of her parents at Tappen, North Dakota, where she has resided and continues to reside until the time this case was submitted to the Supreme Court. It can be fairly deduced that she still lives with her parents for the reason that she is unable to fend for herself in life and needs the constant care, comfort, companionship and support of her parents — both psychologically and physically. Were it not for the mother transporting and attending to the immediate needs of her daughter, the daughter would have simply perished. It was both reasonable and necessary that someone attend to the needs of employee and the mother did so. Had not the mother done so, it could easily have been perceived as heartless action on her part and without any doubt a full-time nurse would have had to be employed to care for employee on a round-the-clock basis. It is to be remembered that the mother asks not one dime for her time in saving her daughter’s life and acting as her nurse; rather, the employee only asks that her mother be reimbursed for her suitable and proper care. This necessarily included getting employee to and from institutions so she could survive and be nursed. SDCL 62-4-1 provides for suitable and proper care. “We have a long-standing policy to interpret workmen’s compensation statutes liberally.” S.D. Med. Serv. v. Minn. Mut. Fire & Cas. Co., 303 N.W.2d 358, 361 (S.D.1981). Justice Frank Biegelmeier, writing for the Court in Donovan v. Powers, 86 S.D. 245, 248, 193 N.W.2d 796, 798 (1972), expressed it this way: “The Workmen’s Compensation Law is remedial and should be liberally construed to effectuate its purpose.” Therefore, I cannot bring myself to interpret the statute against the employee. Suitable and proper care would be required to feed employee for she was unable to eat by herself; a tube was introduced into her stomach through her nose for feeding purposes and she was unable to speak; she was markedly spastic and assumed the fetal position. On one occasion, employee would have choked to death had the mother not been at her side to save her life. Common sense dictates that had employee's parents employed professional care, an equivalent nursing would have amounted to a far greater amount than simply the out-of-pocket expense of employee’s mother.* Thus, I disagree with my Brothers on the disallowance believing that their interpretation of SDCL 62-4-1 is not in keeping with the phrase “or other suitable and proper care.” Further, I do not construe a tele*137vision, tape recorder and player to be a medical or surgical supply or apparatus or body aid within the meaning of SDCL 62-4-1.
I cannot bring myself to agree with the prejudgment interest decisional aspect of the majority opinion. I cannot quarrel with the authorities cited by the majority opinion on the prejudgment interest issue. It is the application of those authorities to the facts at hand that seem to me to achieve an unwarranted result. I am troubled that these authorities have been used in such fashion to make an award of prejudgment interest where no prejudgment interest has been charged. Essentially, the majority opinion holds that employee should be reimbursed for interest on all unpaid medical bills as well as other expenditures from and after the date of being incurred. Ordinarily, I would not have the slightest reservation in subscribing to such holding. However, the facts reflect that medical accounts and bills where interest was recoverable, have already been paid by the employer. Interest should be recoverable in those situations where it is, in truth and in fact, being charged or where accounts had previously been paid by the employee or members of the employee’s family. The circuit court specifically found and held that appellant’s request for interest should be denied, only because of the facts before it, namely, that interest had not been charged to the appellant on certain accounts and accounts had not previously been paid by appellant or members of her family. Interest should be recovered where interest has been incurred. If there is no interest incurred, on an item-to-item basis, interest should not be reimbursed by the employer. Therefore, I would sustain the trial court in its holding in this regard.

 Permitting the recovery of nursing services in the home (though mother asked not for it here) for family members, is being enlarged by the majority of states. 2 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 61.13(d) (1983); see Sisk v. Philpot, 244 Ark. 79, 423 S.W.2d 871 (1968), for parents’ recovery of medical, surgical, hospital, and nursing services; see also, Kushay v. Sexton Dairy Co., 394 Mich. 69, 228 N.W.2d 205 (1975).