Horizon Air Industries, Inc. v. Davis-Warren

Under ORS 656.005(7)(a), to establish a compensable injury a claimant must prove that an injury was suffered in the course of employment and that the injury resulted in death, disability, or was severe enough to require medical services, including medical services with only a diagnostic or prophylactic purpose.

Claimant Lisa Davis-Warren (Claimant), a flight attendant for Horizon Air Industries, Inc. (Horizon), suffered dizziness, nausea, and breathing difficulties as a result of failure of the plane cabin to fully pressurize during a flight on which Claimant was working. After landing, Claimant took a flight home rather than work her next scheduled flight. Claimant proceeded to a hospital where a doctor determined Claimant’s symptoms may have been caused by the cabin pressure changes and ordered a test of pressure by way of hyperbaric treatment to aid in identifying whether Claimant had decompression sickness. Horizon denied Claimant’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits; the denial was upheld by an ALJ after a hearing, on the basis that Claimant did not suffer a compensable injury because the ALJ found there was no possibility, under the circumstances, that Claimant would develop a medical condition. The workers’ compensation board reversed, concluding that Claimant was not required to prove a diagnosable medical condition, and that the hyperbaric treatments prescribed had a diagnostic purpose because there exists no diagnostic standard for compression sickness. The Court held Claimant only had to show that the hyperbaric chamber treatments were a required medical service arising out of a workplace injury to show a compensable injury had occurred. Additionally, the Court held that medical services include diagnostic procedures or prophylactic treatment, not only those medical services directed toward the cure of a diagnosed medical condition. Affirmed.