An exotic dancer who was caught in the crossfire during a shootout at the Boom Boom Room in Columbia has notched another victory at the South Carolina Supreme Court in her protracted effort to receive compensation for her workplace injuries.
In the latest decision in favor of LeAndra Lewis, the high court on April 19 reversed the Court of Appeals’ affirmation of a state Workers’ Compensation Commission ruling that awarded her a meager $75 a week in benefits.
Lewis said she worked five to seven nights a week and raked in about $350 in tips each shift, according to one of her appellate attorneys, Blake Hewitt of Bluestein, Nichols, Thompson & Delgado in Columbia.
But the commission dismissed her testimony as “self-serving,” held that she was “bound by the wages” she received from her employer, L.B. Dynasty, and awarded her the minimum comp rate allowable under the permanent and total disability statute.
While the commission’s order addressed Lewis’ wages, the ruling focused primarily on whether she was an employee or independent contractor. The commission and Court of Appeals found that she was the latter. But the Supreme Court reversed the rulings in a 4-1 decision in 2015 and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to determine her benefits.
The Court of Appeals subsequently held that Lewis had “failed to meet her burden to prove her wages earned from other employers.” The ruling was based on the commission’s original order centered on Lewis’ employment status.
In reversing the lower court, Justice Kaye Hearn held that the commission was “plainly wrong” when it found that Lewis had offered “no evidence whatsoever” to show her earnings. Hearn
also noted that the commission rendered its ruling without revealing how it calculated her weekly wages.
The commission had asserted that Lewis failed to file a required document, Form 20, detailing the wages she collected from her employer. But Hearn wrote that the “unique nature of Lewis’ employment” rendered the form useless as her earnings came solely from tips.
“Therefore, because the statutory scheme is designed to allow for alternative wage calculation methods when fairness requires, we hold the determination of Lewis’ wages does not demand rigid adherence to the Form 20,” Hearn concluded.
Hearn also wrote the earlier majority opinion reversing the Court of Appeals’ determination that Lewis was a contractor. Hearn held that the club acted as an employer because it provided equipment for its dancers — the poles, stage, chairs and bar items — and rejected the Court of Appeals’ finding that a stripper’s body could be considered equipment.
Justice John Few, then serving as chief of the Court of Appeals, explained in a footnote in the opinion what it meant to “make it rain” in a strip club – the phrase refers to showering nude dancers with cash – and discussed whether strippers bring their own “equipment” – i.e., their bodies – to work. During oral arguments at the Supreme Court, then-Chief Justice Jean Toal said she “didn’t like the way this decision was written below with all that business about this Boom Boom Room.” Few now sits on the Supreme Court bench, but he was not involved in the latest decision in Lewis’ case.
Lisa Glover, a Columbia-based attorney for the South Carolina Uninsured Employers’ Fund, the defendant in this case because L.B. Dynasty did not have workers’ comp coverage for its dancers, declined an interview request.
Now, Lewis must return to the commission for a second benefits hearing. Her trial attorney, Charles Burnette of Burnette & Payne in Rock Hill, believes that Lewis is entitled to more than $660 a week in workers’ comp based on her earnings in 2008, when she was shot.
A stray bullet from a patron’s gun tore through Lewis’ abdomen, hitting her intestines, liver, pancreas, uterus and a kidney that had to be removed. She was 19 at the time.
The Supreme Court’s first decision for Lewis was touted as a wake-up call for the vast majority of strip clubs in the Palmetto State. Classifying dancers as employees, rather than contractors, was expected to spur the clubs to either change the way they did business or start carrying workers’ comp coverage.
Lewis’ latest appellate victory has blazed another trail for dancers and others who are in unique employment situations and might have a difficult time proving their wages when they go before the comp commission.
“It’s an important case and an important decision,” Burnette said.
The four-page opinion is Lewis v. L.B. Dynasty, Inc. (Lawyers Weekly No. 010-022-17). A digest of the opinion is available at sclawyersweekly.com.
Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @SCLWBantz