Heupel v. Imprimis Technology, Inc.

HENDERSON, Justice

(concurring in part; concurring in result in part).

I concur on issue one.

I concur in result on issue two because of the rationale in reaching the merits on equitable estoppel. It appears that this Court, in Moody v. L.W. Tyler Custom Combiners, 297 N.W.2d 179 (S.D.1980) recognized that the requirement of a timely filed claim cannot be avoided on a theory of waiver or equitable estoppel. Further, this writer has written on the Doctrine of Equitable Estoppel for a decade insisting that the early, and solid, cases in this Court did not require the element of false representation. See, majority opinion written by this special writer in Sander v. Wright, 394 N.W.2d 896 (S.D.1986) and similar expressions in other writings that there are times and factual scenarios which can trigger the Doctrine of Equitable Estoppel. See, concurrence in result by Henderson, J., in L.R. Foy Construction. See also, Willadsen v. Crawford, 75 S.D. 161, 60 N.W.2d 692 (1953) to support my continued position and Somers v. Somers, 27 S.D. 500, 504, 131 N.W. 1091, 1093 (1911). Later writings in this court have narrowed this hoary old doctrine to, unfortunately, eliminate its spiritual birth from the Lady of Equity.

SABERS, Justice

(concurring specially).

I concur specially on the basis that even assuming the employer had actual notice of Heupel’s medical disability, employer certainly had no timely notice in writing of any claim for compensation based on the disability as required by SDCL 62-8-13, or notice in writing of an occupational disease as required by SDCL 62-8-29.