Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc.
Decision Date | 02 July 1997 |
Citation | 149 Or.App. 49,941 P.2d 1065 |
Court | Oregon Court of Appeals |
Parties | Terry L. SMOTHERS, Appellant, v. GRESHAM TRANSFER, INC., an Oregon corporation, Respondent. 9505-02969; CA A90805. |
Michael A. Gilbertson, Portland, argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.
Thomas W. Sondag, Portland, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Scott P. Monfils and Lane Powell Spears Lubersky.
Chess Trethewy and Garrett, Hemann, Robertson, Paulus, Jennings & Comstock, Salem, filed the brief amicus curiae for Associated Oregon Industries.
Maureen Leonard, Portland, filed the brief amicus curiae for Oregon Trial Lawyers Association.
Before WARREN, P.J., and EDMONDS and ARMSTRONG, JJ.
Plaintiff alleges that, while acting in the course of his employment, he sustained personal injuries due to defendant employer's negligence. Defendant moved to dismiss for failure to state ultimate facts sufficient to constitute a claim, ORCP 21 A(8), and the trial court granted his motion. Plaintiff appeals and assigns error on the grounds that the court's application of ORS 656.018, the exclusive remedy provision of the Workers' Compensation Law, to his claim, violates the remedy clause of Article I, section 10, and the contract clause of Article I, section 21, of the Oregon Constitution. We affirm.
On an appeal from the trial court's grant of an ORCP 21 A motion, we assume the truth of all well-pleaded facts alleged in the complaint and give the plaintiff the benefit of all favorable inferences that may be drawn from those facts. Stringer v. Car Data Systems, Inc., 314 Or. 576, 584, 841 P.2d 1183 (1992). The complaint alleges that plaintiff was employed by defendant as a lube technician in defendant's truck shop. Immediately next to the area where plaintiff worked is an area where defendant washed its trucks with a mixture that included one or more kinds of acid. Defendant negligently allowed acid laden mist and fumes to drift into the shop area where plaintiff worked, causing harm to his respiratory system, skin, teeth and joints. The complaint continues:
Plaintiff commenced this action on May 4, 1995. The emphasized segment of the complaint draws its significance from Errand v. Cascade Steel Rolling Mills, Inc., 320 Or. 509, 888 P.2d 544 (1995), a case in which the Supreme Court construed the text of ORS 656.018 that was in effect when plaintiff filed his complaint. At that time, ORS 656.018(1) provided, in part:
"The liability of every employer who satisfies the duty required by ORS 656.017(1) is exclusive and in place of all other liability arising out of compensable injuries to the subject workers * * *." (Emphasis supplied.)
In Errand, the Board ruled that the plaintiff's work-related harm was not a compensable injury. 320 Or. at 514, 888 P.2d 544. The plaintiff then commenced an action in circuit court alleging that the work-related harm was due to the employer's negligence. The trial court granted summary judgment to the employer based on ORS 656.018. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that "the exclusivity provision of ORS 656.018 does not provide [complying employers] with immunity from plaintiff's civil claims here, because plaintiff did not have a 'compensable injury' within the meaning of ORS 656.005(7)(a) and ORS 656.018(1)." Id. at 525, 888 P.2d 544. 1
After the decision in Errand and after plaintiff filed this complaint, the legislature enacted Oregon Laws Chapter 332 (1995), which, among other things, amended ORS 656.018. ORS 656.018 now provides, in part:
Finally, the legislature provided that the amendments to ORS 656.018 would apply to "all claims or causes of action existing or arising on or after the effective date of this Act, regardless of the date of injury or the date a claim is presented." Or.Laws 1995, ch. 332, § 66(1).
Plaintiff contends that amended ORS 656.018 as applied to him violates the remedy clause of Article I, section 10. Article I, section 10, provides in part: "[E]very man shall have remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, property, or reputation." Plaintiff argues that, as a result of ORS 656.018, he has been left without a remedy for his work-related injuries that were the result of defendant's negligence. He points out that, under ORS 656.005(7)(a), 2 he has been denied a remedy for his injuries and that, under ORS 656.018, defendant is immune from all other liability.
We disagree with plaintiff's argument. First, Picray v. Secretary of State, 140 Or.App. 592, 606, 916 P.2d 324 (1996), (Armstrong, J., concurring), aff'd 325 Or. 279, 936 P.2d 974 (1997). Within its plenary power, "[t]he legislature has the authority to determine what constitutes a legally cognizable injury." Sealey v. Hicks, 309 Or. 387, 394, 788 P.2d 435, cert. den. 498 U.S. 819, 111 S.Ct. 65, 112 L.Ed.2d 39 (1990) ( ). In Neher v. Chartier, 319 Or. 417, 879 P.2d 156 (1994), the court said:
Id. at 427-28, 88 P.2d 808. (Footnote omitted.)
The question in this case is whether the legislature, when it amended ORS 656.018, intended to declare that a work-related harm that is outside the definition of "compensable injury" in ORS 656.005(7)(a) is not a "legally cognizable" injury. If that was its intention, then there is no "right" on which a "deprivation of a remedy" argument could be predicated. The Supreme Court has answered that question in Kilminster v. Day Management Corp., 323 Or. 618, 624, 919 P.2d 474 (1996). In that case, the decedent's parents attempted to recover from the decedent's employer on a negligence-based theory of wrongful death under ORS 30.020. 4 The employer raised the exclusive remedies provisions of ORS 656.018 as a defense. Construing ORS 656.018 as amended in 1995, the court held:
Kilminster, 323 Or. at 624, 919 P.2d 474. (Citation and footnote omitted; emphasis supplied.)
In summary, it is clear that the legislature, by its 1995 amendment to ORS 656.018, intended to abolish whatever liability a complying employer could have had at common law under the predecessor statute as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Errand. Because plaintiff alleges that he suffered a negligently caused, work-related harm, he has not suffered a "legally cognizable...
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Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc.
...remedy" for work-related injuries, whether or not a claim is compensable. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 149 Or.App. 49, 941 P.2d 1065 (1997). This court allowed review to address plaintiff's contention that he has been denied a remedy for the injuries th......
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...even if the injury turns out not to be deemed compensable by the workers' compensation law. See Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 149 Or. App. 49, 53-56, 941 P.2d 1065 (1997), rev. allowed 328 Or. 40, 977 P.2d 1170 (1998) (upholding this aspect of the workers' compensation law against Art......
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...that argument and granted the defendant's motion to dismiss. Id. at 86, 23 P.3d 333. This court affirmed. Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 149 Or.App. 49, 941 P.2d 1065 (1997). The Supreme Court reversed. It held that the legislature could not abolish a common-law cause of action that wa......