Diamond Fruit Growers v. Goss

852 P.2d 915, 120 Or. App. 390, 1993 Ore. App. LEXIS 779
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMay 19, 1993
Docket90-18146; CA A72857
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 852 P.2d 915 (Diamond Fruit Growers v. Goss) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Diamond Fruit Growers v. Goss, 852 P.2d 915, 120 Or. App. 390, 1993 Ore. App. LEXIS 779 (Or. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

DEITS, J.

Employer seeks review of an order of the Workers’ Compensation Board (Board) holding that it could not stay payment of unscheduled permanent partial disability benefits pending the appeal of an order finding claimant’s claim compensable. We affirm.

In 1988, claimant filed an aggravation claim for back and hip conditions, which she alleged were related to a compensable injury suffered in 1987. Employer denied the claim, and claimant requested a hearing. On March 5,1990, a referee concluded that the claim was compensable, set aside employer’s denial and remanded the case to employer for acceptance. Later, in March, employer sought Board review of the referee’s order, but began to process the claim to closure in accordance with the referee’s order. A determination order was issued on September 11, 1990, awarding claimant temporary total disability and permanent partial disability for periods in 1988 and 1989. Employer did not appeal the determination order, but refused to pay compensation pending Board review of the March 5 order. Claimant sought a hearing on employer’s refusal to pay pursuant to the September 11 determination order.

The Board concluded that employer was not entitled to stay payment of compensation under amended ORS 656.313.1 It reasoned that ORS 656.313, as amended by Oregon Laws 1990, chapter 2, section 23, provides that the filing by an employer of a request for hearing on a reconsideration order or a request for review by the Board or court, stays payment of the compensation appealed. As the Board explained:

“Thus, the statute expressly applies only to an employer’s appeal from the order which awards the compensation in [393]*393dispute. Here, the order the employer had to appeal in order to stay payment of the compensation at issue, was the September 11, 1990 Determination Order which awarded claimant the temporary total and permanent partial disability benefits that the employer refused to pay. No appeal of the order was filed by the employer.
“We reject the employer’s contention, as did the Referee, that its request for Board review of a referee’s March 5,1990 Opinion and Order stayed payment of compensation awarded by the September 1990 Determination Order pursuant to amended ORS 656.313. The Referee did not decide the extent, if any, of the permanent or temporary disability benefits to which claimant was entitled. The issue before the referee concerned the compensability of claimant’s physical condition * * *. The Determination Order which awarded claimant compensation was issued five months later and there was no appeal from that order. ORS 656.313, as amended, does not apply according to its terms.”

The Board also identified an alternative basis for its holding: It held that the amended version of ORS 656.313 did not apply here because the employer filed its appeal of the referee’s order before the effective date of the amendment to ORS 656.313, July 1, 1990.

After its decision in this case, the Board, sitting in banc, disavowed a portion of its holding here in Felipe A. Rocha, 45 Van Natta 47 (1993). It held in Rocha that, when an employer is entitled to a stay of compensation under ORS 656.313, it is not necessary for the employer to seek review of a determination or closure order issued during the pendency of the appeal in order to preserve the stay. However, if the employer otherwise disagrees with the order, it would be necessary to appeal the determination order for those purposes. As the Board explained:

“[U]nless it was otherwise in disagreement with the order, a carrier would not he required to appeal the closure to ‘preserve’ the previously acquired stay of compensation. Not only is this interpretation consistent with the ‘stay’ requirements of ORS 656.313(l)(a), but it satisfies an objective of the Workers’ Compensation Law to reduce litigation and eliminate [s] the adversary nature of the compensation proceedings to the greatest extent practicable. See ORS 656.012(2)(b).”

[394]*394We agree with the Board’s reasoning in Rocha concerning the necessity of appealing a determination order in order to preserve a stay under ORS 656.313. Accordingly, the fact that employer here did not appeal the determination order issued in September, 1990, does not preclude its entitlement to a stay under ORS 656.313, if it was otherwise entitled to one. Whether it was entitled to one becomes the critical question.

As mentioned above, the Board held that an alternative basis for concluding that employer was not entitled to a stay was that, at the time that employer appealed the referee’s order in March, 1990, the former version of ORS 656.313 was in effect. Under that version of the statute, employer was not entitled to a stay. See Roseburg Forest Products v. McDonald, 116 Or App 448, 841 P2d 697 (1992). The Board explained:

“We disagree with the employer’s argument that under Section 54(1) of the Act, the legislature intended amended ORS 656.313 to apply retroactively to appeals which were filed before the Act’s effective date. By conditioning the statute’s application upon the filing of the insurer’s appeal, ORS 656.313 operates by its own terms, to limit its application to an action taken by the insurer either on or after the statute’s effective date. Prior to July 1, 1990, payment of compensation was not stayed upon filing of an employer’s appeal. Had the legislature intended to discontinue, in midstream, the payment of compensation in all insurer’s appeals pending at the various stages of administrative or court review on July 1,1990, no matter when the appeal had been filed, the legislature would have said so in explicit language. * * * [Employer’s] refusal to pay the compensation awarded by the September 11, 1990 Determination Order was unlawful.” (Footnote omitted.)

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
852 P.2d 915, 120 Or. App. 390, 1993 Ore. App. LEXIS 779, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/diamond-fruit-growers-v-goss-orctapp-1993.