Category: Causation
Oregon Employee Injured While Working from Home? Best Practices to Determine Compensability
With the onset of COVID-19 and statewide stay-at-home orders, a high percentage of today’s workforce is operating from home, or in some variation of remote setup. Even as employees begin to return to a more traditional work setting, it is reasonable to anticipate that the pandemic-related response will have long-term…
Active Preexisting Conditions or Passive Predispositions – How Do I Tell the Difference?
A few months ago, we discussed a new Court of Appeals case addressing preexisting conditions. Dennis L. Corkum v. Bi-Mart Corp., 271 Or App 411 (2015). Our main concern was another court-made layer of analysis, specifically distinguishing “active” preexisting conditions and “passive” predispositions. A copy of that article can be…
SBH Prevails before Court of Appeals on Case Addressing Occupational Disease Analysis
In Luton v. Willamette Valley Rehabilitation Center, 432 Or App 487 (2015), claimant filed a claim for right wrist pain. He testified that on April 5, 2010 he was doing a job requiring him to wrap sticks with a band when he felt a tearing in his cartilage. He experienced…
Court of Appeals issues decision on U.S. Bank v. Diane Pohrman
The Oregon Court of Appeals issued a decision yesterday addressing the “social or recreational activity” exclusion in ORS 656.005(7)(b)(B). In U.S. Bank v. Diane Pohrman, the worker was on a paid break when she slipped and fell in the lobby of a building where her employer leased space on the…
Corkum Adds Another Layer to Combined Condition Analysis
In the past year and a half, the Oregon Court of Appeals has done much to change the landscape of how combined condition claims are processed and litigated. While Brown v. SAIF is currently pending before the Supreme Court of Oregon, the Court of Appeals has published a new opinion…
