Estacada Rural Fire District 69 v. Hull

303 P.3d 969, 256 Or. App. 729
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMay 22, 2013
Docket0801504; A148377
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 303 P.3d 969 (Estacada Rural Fire District 69 v. Hull) 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
Estacada Rural Fire District 69 v. Hull, 303 P.3d 969, 256 Or. App. 729 (Or. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

NAKAMOTO, J.

At issue in this case is whether claimant’s stress-related heart attack must be analyzed under the so-called firefighters’ presumption of ORS 656.802(4) or instead, under the heightened standard of proof for mental disorders found in ORS 656.802(3). The Workers’ Compensation Board (board) applied the firefighters’ presumption, and employer seeks judicial review. For the following reasons, we reverse and remand.

The facts, as found by the administrative law judge (AL J) and adopted by the board, are supported by substantial evidence. Claimant is a fire district chief and has worked for employer for over 30 years. In June 2007, the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office informed claimant that one of his long-time employees had embezzled $1.9 million over several years. The sheriffs office asked claimant to go undercover and to gather evidence against the employee, which claimant agreed to do. Following the employee’s arrest, claimant was the subject of public concern and anger over the embezzlement, with some members of the public calling for his removal. Claimant experienced stress as a result of his undercover assignment and the community anger directed at him.

In October 2007, after talking to several people about the embezzlement at a high school football game, claimant was having trouble sleeping. He asked his wife whether she had overheard an individual’s comment at the game about the embezzlement, and she responded that she was “sick and tired of living and breathing that embezzlement since July” and had seen what the embezzlement had done to claimant and their family. Claimant began to rub his wife’s shoulder when his “arm just sort of went numb.” He began to experience chest pain and was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with myocardial infarction, more commonly known as a heart attack.

Five medical experts provided opinions concerning the cause of claimant’s myocardial infarction: Drs. Greenberg, [731]*731Samoil, Semler, DeMots, and Toren. Each doctor agreed that claimant had an underlying coronary artery disease (arteriosclerosis) unrelated to his employment, which contributed to his myocardial infarction. Samoil believed that stress from the embezzlement was a “causative factor” of the myocardial infarction, whereas Greenberg believed that the stress and arteriosclerosis contributed equally to the myocardial infarction. DeMots characterized claimant’s “acute stress” during the conversation with his wife about the embezzlement to be “at most a trigger or precipitating factor.” Semler and Toren likewise did not exclude claimant’s work-related stress as contributing to the myocardial infarction, but they believed that any such contribution was minor.

Claimant filed a workers’ compensation claim, contending that his myocardial infarction was a compensable occupational disease, ORS 656.804, which employer denied. Claimant requested an evidentiary hearing and argued to the ALJ that the “firefighters’ presumption” under ORS 656.802(4), which presumes that the cause of the condition or impairment is related to the firefighter’s employment, applied. In denying compensation, the ALJ determined that claimant’s heart attack was caused or worsened by mental stress associated with the embezzlement and treated the claim as a mental disorder claim. See ORS 656.802(l)(b) (“‘[M]ental disorder’ includes any physical disorder caused or worsened by mental stress.”). The ALJ concluded that the firefighters’ presumption does not apply to claims for a mental disorder and, instead, applied the heightened compensability standard for mental disorders set forth in ORS 656.802(3). In general, that standard requires the claimant to establish that (1) the employment condition producing the mental disorder exists, (2) the employment condition is not generally inherent in every work situation, (3) the diagnosed mental disorder is generally recognized in the medical or psychological community, and (4) there is clear and convincing evidence that the mental disorder arose out of and in the course of employment. ORS 656.802(3)(a) - (d). The ALJ concluded that claimant did not carry his burden of proving that the mental stress, which led to claimant’s heart attack, was work related, and affirmed the denial.

[732]*732Claimant sought review with the board, arguing that the firefighters’ presumption applies and that employer did not establish by “clear and convincing medical evidence that the cause of the condition or impairment [was] unrelated to the firefighter’s employment” as required by ORS 656.802(4). Employer countered that the firefighters’ presumption does not apply, because claimant’s myocardial infarction lacks the renal component to qualify as a “cardiovascular-renal disease” as required by ORS 656.802(4). In addition, employer contended that claimant did not establish that his myocardial infarction, which was caused by stress, met the criteria for establishing a compensable mental disorder under ORS 656.802(l)(b) and (3).

A divided board agreed with claimant and reversed the AL J’s decision. In doing so, the majority framed the issues as follows:

“Thus, if claimant was not a qualifying firefighter under ORS 656.802(4), his claimed [myocardial infarction] would be treated as a ‘mental disorder’ because it is a ‘physical disorder caused or worsened by mental stress.’ See ORS 656.802(l)(b). Claimant would then need to meet the heightened standards of proving a compensable mental disorder as set forth in ORS 656.802(3). Conversely, if analyzed as a ‘cardiovascular-renal disease’ under ORS 656.802(4), the claim would be presumptively compensable, with the employer required to demonstrate with ‘clear and convincing evidence that the cause of the condition or impairment [was] unrelated to the firefighter’s employment.’”

The majority reasoned that the firefighters’ presumption applies to claimant’s myocardial infarction, because, when the legislature originally enacted the firefighters’ presumption, it relied on submissions and testimony that considered a firefighter’s mental stress to contribute, in part, to presumptively compensable diseases, such as cardiovascular-renal disease.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
303 P.3d 969, 256 Or. App. 729, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estacada-rural-fire-district-69-v-hull-orctapp-2013.