The Oregon Supreme Court on Friday ruled for an employer in a negligence case brought by an injured worker who claimed his lawsuit was permitted because it fell within an exception to workers compensation’s exclusive remedy.
The high court ruled against plaintiff Danny Bundy, who sued over allegations that he was injured from exposure to dangerous levels of toxic fumes while working as a terminal operator for NuStar GP LLC.
Mr. Bundy accepted comp benefits for non-disabling exposure to gasoline vapors, but later sought additional benefits for other conditions.
The employer denied the additional claims, arguing the exposure was not the “major contributing cause” of the subsequent conditions.
While the additional comp claims were pending, Mr. Bundy sued the company, citing a legal exception permitting civil suits when work injuries are deemed non-compensable because the worker failed to prove the incident was a major contributing cause of an injury, but only after an order that the claim is non-compensable becomes final.
The employer argued that even though a comp board found some of Mr. Bundy’s injuries non-compensable, it still accepted the comp claim as a whole.
The Supreme Court wrote that the statute cited by Mr. Bundy was not intended to be a substantive exception to comp’s exclusive remedy provision but rather a procedural law designed to regulate a process that legislators believed would be required to accommodate claimants until they could be provided with an adequate substitute remedy for work injuries.