- Court: Oregon Court of Appeals
- Area(s) of Law: Workers Compensation
- Date Filed: 10-15-2014
- Case #: A150352
- Judge(s)/Court Below: Garrett, J.for the Court; Ortega, P.J.; & DeVore, J.
Claimant Lisa Davis-Warren (Davis-Warren), 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 Davis-Warren was working. After landing, Davis-Warren took a flight home rather than work her next scheduled flight. Davis-Warren proceeded to a hospital where a doctor determined Davis-Warren’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 Davis-Warren had decompression sickness. Horizon denied Davis-Warren’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits; the denial was upheld by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) on the basis that Davis-Warren did not suffer a compensable injury. The ALJ found there was no possibility, under the circumstances, that Davis-Warren would develop a medical condition. The workers’ compensation board reversed, concluding that Davis-Warren 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 Davis-Warren 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.