Jury awards $42 million to Rapid City woman injured at work

RAPID CITY (AP) – A Pennington County jury has awarded $42 million to a Rapid City woman after she was denied medical benefits from her previous employer and the employer's insurance company.

United Parcel Service and Liberty Mutual were ordered to pay Fern Johnson $41 million in punitive damages and $1 million in compensatory damages in a verdict reached Friday.

Johnson took a worker’s compensation claim to court following an injury on the job while working for UPS in 1996. A laparoscopy determined Johnson had a hernia and she underwent surgery. She stopped working for UPS in 1997 due to groin and back pain.

Johnson’s compensable medical expenses were paid for by the employer up until spring of 2010, at which point the appellants requested their attorney to review the case, the Rapid City Journal reported.

Read more: https://brookingsregister.com/article/jury-awards-42-million-to-rapid-city-woman-injured-at-work

Two separate verdicts for over $40 million were awarded by different juries. Time for UPS and Liberty Mutual to pay up.