Court Opinion

ID: 9580084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:01:40.472921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:01.323583
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. SDCL 62-4-5.1 provided in part that the employee shall receive compensation “during the period he is engaged in a program of rehabilitation which is reasonably necessary to restore the employee to suitable, substantial and gainful employment.” According to the majority opinion, however, the application of Chiolis’ two years of rehabilitation benefits to his college education is not a reasonable means of rehabilitation necessary to restore him to suitable, substantial and gainful employment. I disagree.
Cozine, cited by the majority for its holding that an employer cannot be compelled to pay for a college education if it is not necessary, is clearly distinguishable. The employee in Cozine sought rehabilitation benefits for her entire four-year college program even though she was not entitled to any rehabilitation benefits whatsoever. 454 N.W.2d at 553-54. Conversely, it is undisputed that Chiolis needs two years of rehabilitation to enable him to return to suitable, substantial and gainful employment. And while Chiolis is enrolled in a four-year degree program, he is not insisting upon a college education, see Barkdull II, 411 N.W.2d at 410, but only asking to use the two years of rehabilitation benefits which he needs and is entitled to, to finance two of his four years of college.
SDCL 62-4-5.1 allowed rehabilitation benefits while an employee “is engaged in a program of rehabilitation which is reasonably necessary to restore the employee to suitable, substantial and gainful employment.” (Emphasis added.) As noted in Justice Henderson’s dissent, this court has previously stated that worker’s compensation statutes are remedial and should be liberally construed in favor of the injured employee. Mills, 442 N.W.2d at 246 (citations omitted). The engineering program that Chiolis is engaged in is just such a “reasonably necessary” program. Upon graduation, Chiolis will be restored to “suitable, substantial and gainful employment,” and Lage will only have been “compelled to pay for” the two years of rehabilitation to which Chiolis is undeniably entitled and Lage is undeniably obligated to “underwrite.”
The Hearing Officer and the Circuit Court reached a reasonable solution in this case. It provides neither windfall to Chiolis nor expense to Lage other than already required under the law. I would affirm.