South Dakota: Waitress Recovers Benefits for Brain Hemorrhage Resulting From Bar Fight

A restaurant waitress, who suffered an onset of severe headaches and vomiting one week after she sustained what appeared to be minor injuries at work when a fight broke out in the restaurant bar on New Year’s Eve 2009, was entitled to significant workers’ compensation benefits where one week after the event an MRI revealed a massive intraventricular hemorrhage in her brain and she underwent brain surgery the following day, held the Supreme Court of South Dakota. The Court acknowledged the employer’s contention that the hemorrhage had actually been caused by the waitress’s roughhousing with her boyfriend and brother several days after the New Year’s Eve bar fight, but noted that the Department of Labor had conducted a hearing and had resolved the evidence in favor of the waitress. The Court indicated in particular that the waitress presented medical evidence that the workplace injury on New Year’s Eve was a major contributing cause of the waitress’s brain hemorrhage. While there was a conflict in the medical evidence, the Court indicated substantial evidence supported the Department’s findings.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Sorensen v. Midwest Family Ins. Co., 2015 SD 88, 2015 S.D. LEXIS 154 (Nov. 10, 2015) [2015 SD 88, 2015 S.D. LEXIS 154 (Nov. 10, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 130.05 [130.05]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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