State loses bid to reclaim COVID funding from bed and breakfast

Court rules that pandemic had 'significant adverse impact' on business owner

The owner of a Custer County bed and breakfast should not be required to pay back more than $14,000 that she received in Covid assistance funds, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The unanimous 5-0 opinion reverses a circuit court decision and an administrative law judge who both ruled that the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation was within its rights to demand that Darcy Bracken repay $14,080 in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act funding.

But the department and the administrative law judge who supported the department’s decision relied on an incorrect interpretation of the law that authorized Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits for self-employed people, including Bracken.

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