Court Opinion

ID: 9664113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:03:07.869553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:02.110715
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Chief Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority opinion that SDCL 3-12-47(18) must be read in the conjunctive.
I cannot agree, however, that the trial court concluded that appellee qualified for benefits under the “position of comparable level” standard of SDCL 3-12-47(18). Even appellee does not advance that argument, understandably so in view of that portion of the trial court’s order that states:
[Appellee’s] application for disability benefits under the South Dakota Retirement System should be approved because she is suffering from medically determinable physical or mental impairments which prevent her from performing her usual duties for her employer . . . . (emphasis added)
It is one thing to say that appellee is no longer able to function as a school administrator; it is quite another to say that she is incapable of performing the duties of a position of comparable level, for surely that phrase must be descriptive of a fairly broad range of alternative tasks.
*256That appellee is suffering from several physical ailments is not open to question. The nature, extent, and consequences of these ailments are in question, however, and it is for the Board as the finder of fact to weigh the evidence and to draw such inferences as are permissible. The proper scope of judicial review of an agency decision is set forth in City of Brookings v. Dept, of Environ. Prot., 274 N.W.2d 887 (S.D.1979). Under that scope of review, it is not for a reviewing court to conclude that the Board failed to consider appellee’s ailments in their totality. It was for the Board to determine the individual and collective impact of appellee’s ailments, and the Board’s conclusion that appellee had failed to carry her burden of establishing that she is unable to perform her usual duties or the duties of a position of comparable level makes clear that the Board did exactly what the majority now says it should have done.
The Board bears a heavy responsibility, both to claimants such as appellee and to the entire membership of the retirement system. Surely the Board must not impose such exacting requirements of proof of disability as to disqualify any but the moribund member from benefits, but I fear that the majority has underestimated the adverse effects upon the system that may result from requiring only a prima facie showing of disability. To say that the record does not reflect that any other comparable positions were available to appellee is to disregard the testimony of the superintendent of the Douglas School System that he had offered appellee a research position, or appellee’s own testimony regarding the administrative position offered to her by her church or the career counseling position offered to her by a Rapid City financial institution. It was for the Board to determine whether appellee was physically disabled from accepting these positions and whether they constituted positions of comparable level.
I would reverse the decision of the circuit court and remand for reinstatement of the Board’s decision.