As to an employee in an employment in which it is the custom to operate throughout the working days of the year, and who was in the employment of the same employer in the same grade of employment as at the time of the injury continuously for fifty-two weeks next preceding the injury, except for any temporary loss of time, the average weekly wage shall, where feasible, be computed by dividing by fifty-two the total earnings of the employee as defined in subdivision 62-1-1(6), during the period of fifty-two weeks. However, if the employee lost more than seven consecutive days during the period of fifty-two weeks, then the division shall be by the number of weeks and fractions thereof that the employee actually worked.
S.D. Codified Laws § 62-4-24
Employment for year preceding injury--Determination of average weekly wage
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Caldwell v. John Morrell & Co. (1992)
Most recently applied in Wheeler v. Cinna Bakers LLC (May 2015)
Source: SL 1917, ch 376, §§ 26, 55; RC 1919, §§ 9461, 9490; SDC 1939, § 64.0404 (1) (a); SL 1978, ch 370, § 12; SL 2008, ch 278, § 25.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.