PIERRE -- A ruling by the state Labor Department declares that some bonuses can be counted when calculating employees' average weekly earnings for worker compensation cases.
Nondiscretionary bonuses such as longevity pay, seniority pay and meeting individual performance goals can be included.
Bonuses provided in lieu of compensation also can be included as earnings.
But discretionary bonuses cannot, such as one-time payments to all employees regardless of performance, Christmas turkeys and signing-hiring bonuses.
State Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman issued the ruling recently, after a hearing Aug. 24.
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Rapid City attorney James Leach petitioned for the hearing.
Other participating included representatives for the Associated School Boards of South Dakota worker-comp trust fund, the South Dakota Retailers Association and First Dakota Indemnity and Dakota Truck Underwriters.
Leach's initial argument was that state law defines "earnings" as "payment for all hours worked" and a bonus is "payment for ... hours worked."
The department ruled in several past cases against including bonuses and Christmas bonuses in computing wages.
