Magana-Marquez v. SAIF

Under ORS 656.214 and ORS 656.266, a claimant is entitled to an award of permanent disability benefits in connection with a compensable workplace injury only if the claimant shows that the claimant has a permanent impairment that is “due to” or “results from” the claimant’s compensable workplace injury. To make that showing, the claimant must, at a minimum, demonstrate a causal relationship between the compensable injury and the claimed impairment.

Claimant petitioned for review of an order of the Workers’ Compensation Board, which found that Claimant’s workplace injury to her lower back did not cause any permanent impairment, and, on the basis of that finding, denied an award of permanent partial disability. Notwithstanding the findings that the work injury was not the major contributing cause of her loss of range of motion, on review, she relied on the Supreme Court’s opinion in Schleiss v. SAIF, 354 Or 637, 317 P3d 244 (2013), to assert that she was entitled to an award of permanent partial disability benefits for the reduction in range of motion and sensory loss as a matter of law, even if her workplace injury did not cause those claimed impairments. The Court agreed with the Board and concluded that Schleiss did not stand for the proposition that a claimant is entitled to an award of permanent partial disability for an impairment that, as a factual matter, has no causal connection to the Claimant’s compensable workplace injury. Affirmed.