Author: Hannah Teig
Age Discrimination in Hiring and Pay Stub Requirements- New Oregon Employment Laws for 2026
The Oregon Legislature has been busy this session! Two important bills to note are HB 3187 and SB 906. HB 3187 addresses age discrimination in hiring by prohibiting employers from requesting or requiring an applicant’s age, date of birth, or date of graduation from any educational institution prior to completing an…
New Medical Services Rules Proposed by the OR WCD
On February 19, 2025, the WCD is holding a hearing to propose amendments to several medical services rules in OAR 436-009, 436-010, and 436-015. Many of the amendments are to address billing code issues and remove outdated notice language. However, there are several notable proposals: OAR 436-009-0010 would be amended…
Oregon Court of Appeals Upholds Nava Rule
In Nava v. SAIF, 333 Or App 196 (2024), claimant sought judicial review of the Board’s denial of penalty and attorney fees under ORS 656.262(11)(a) for unreasonable delay in payment of compensation. By way of background, claimant was compensably injured in November 2017 and the claim was accepted for left…
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act- What to Know
What is it? The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) went into effect on June 27, 2023. The PWFA is a federal law that expands existing workplace protections for pregnant employees. The PWFA requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related…
COVID-19 Era Amendment to the Oregon Equal Pay Act to Become Permanent?
Under the current version of the Oregon Equal Pay Act, employers are prohibited from paying an employee a higher rate than a coworker for similar work unless the pay disparity is justified by “bona fide factors” such as seniority, merit, travel, education, training, or experience. All types of compensation including…
Washington State Requiring Salary Transparency on Job Postings Effective January 1, 2023
On January 1, 2023, RCW 49.58.110 goes into effect. This law addresses salary transparency in job postings for certain Washington State employers. In November 2022, the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (“L&I”) issued an administrative policy addressing the new job posting requirements under RCW 49.58.110 and providing guidance…
Oregon Annual Adjustment to Maximum Attorney Fees Effective July 1, 2022
It’s that time of year again, the Oregon Workers’ Compensation Board published the annual adjustment to attorney fees awarded under ORS 656.262(11)(a); ORS 656.262(14)(a); and ORS 656.308(2)(d). Per ORS 656.262(11)(a) and ORS 656.308(2), maximum attorney fees under these subsections are adjusted annually by the same percentage made to the state’s…
Oregon Employment Department Finds Vaccine Mandate for Remote Workers Reasonable
The Oregon Employment Department recently denied a former Nike employee’s unemployment benefit application in February 2022. The worker, who worked remotely, was fired for failing to comply with Nike’s vaccine mandate. This decision was not entirely surprising considering the Oregon Employment Department announced in August 2021 they were taking the…
Potential Changes to Oregon Time Loss Rules Coming?
The Workers’ Compensation Section of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA) is currently in the process of drafting a bill with proposed changes to ORS 656.262, 656.268, and 656.319 which they plan to introduce during the 2022 legislative session. All three statues include rules that are applicable to temporary disability…
On remand from the Supreme Court, Oregon’s Workers’ Compensation Board issues decision addressing whether a referral for a noncompensable condition must be covered under a claim
Courts have made clear that pursuant to ORS 656.245(1), employers are required to pay for “medical services for conditions caused in material part by the injury,” but that diagnostic services are compensable only if they are “necessary to determine the cause or extent of a compensable injury.” In other words,…
Tips and Tricks for Independent Medical Exams (IMEs)
Independent medical examinations (IMEs) are a great tool for claims examiners to use in processing at the beginning, middle, and end of claim. They are also important tools for developing evidence to defend a denial or use for other disputes in litigation. The following is a list of tips and…
Court of Appeals reconsiders Meyers v. SAIF in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Gadalean
Meyers v. SAIF has been a long time coming– the case has been on appeal since 2013, traveling all the way up to the Oregon Supreme Court which remanded the case to the Court of Appeals in 2019. It appears, however, we finally have an answer to the question of…
The Oregon Court of Appeals doubles down on the two-prong Roseburg Forest test making it easier for a presumptively responsible employer to shift responsibility
In April 2020, the Court of Appeals issued a significant decision regarding responsibility cases. In NAES Corporation v. SCI 3.2, Inc., 303 Or. App. 684 (2020), the issue was whether the Board erroneously focused on “probability” and not “possibility” of contribution in determining that claimant’s prior work exposure was the…
