Supreme Court steps in to resolve Sanford vs Commission
At the urging of both Gov. Mark Sanford and the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission, the state Supreme Court has accepted original jurisdiction in Sanford v. Commission. The court is expected to take up the matter perhaps as early as this spring.
Governor Mark Sanford
Gov. Sanford petitioned the court in January 2008 to compel the commission to follow his executive orders issued late last year. Put simply, the orders directed the commission to strictly apply the AMA Guides and submit reports to the governor quarterly, revealing the impairment rating given the claimant by the physician and as modified by the commission. However, in a unanimous ruling in October 2007, the commission concluded it cannot apply the AMA Guides as directed because that would be contrary to statutes adopted by the General Assembly and contrary to interpretations by state courts.
The commission did agree to submit reports to the governor, as he had specified, on all contested cases beginning January 1, 2008. But on December 27, 2007 claimants’ attorney Kathryn Williams won an injunction in federal district court in Anderson enjoining the commission from submitting the information requested by the governor. Among various grounds, Ms. Williams argued the governor’s executive orders violate the due process and equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitution.
The governor subsequently petitioned the state Supreme Court and urged it to accept original jurisdiction to speedily resolve the controversy and, the governor added, to avoid the risk of having “a federal court render a decision that is inconsistent with established state law or sound state public policy.”
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