Fleming v. SAIF

Under ORS 656.289(4)(b), "[i]insurers or self-insured employers who are parties to an approved disputed claim settlement under this subsection shall not be joined as parties in subsequent proceedings under this chapter to determine responsibility for payment for claim conditions for which settlement has been made."

Claimant sought judicial review of an order by the Workers' Compensation Board affirming SAIF's denial of claimant's occupational disease claim. Claimant assigned error to the Board's interpretation of Gilkey v. SAIF, 113 Or App 314, 832 P2d 1252, rev den, 314 Or 573 (1992). Claimant argued that Gilkey was distinguishable from the case at hand because Gilkey involved subsequent claims against the same employer, whereas this case involved subsequent claims against a different employer. The Board argued that Gilkey did not turn on the fact that both DCS claims involved the same employer and rather turned on the express wording of the DCS at issue. Under ORS 656.289(4)(b), "[i]insurers or self-insured employers who are parties to an approved disputed claim settlement under this subsection shall not be joined as parties in subsequent proceedings under this chapter to determine responsibility for payment for claim conditions for which settlement has been made." The Court held that the "statutory text's explicit contemplation of the possibility of subsequent proceedings in which the settling self-insured employer or insurer's responsibility would otherwise be at issue tends to suggest that the legislature anticipated that a DCS would not conclusively resolve factual issues for the purposes of such proceedings," and "had the legislature intended for the legal effect of a DCS in subsequent proceedings to go beyond what it expressly stated in ORS 656.289(4)(b), we think that it would have said so expressly." Reversed and remanded.