Title: Coman v. Corrections Dept.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S44624
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: August 13, 1998

Filed:  August 13, 1998

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

In the Matter of the Compensation 
of Allen Coman, Claimant.

ALLEN COMAN,

	Petitioner on Review,

	v.

CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT and
SAIF CORPORATION,

	Respondents on Review.

(WCB 95-12947; CA A95012; SC S44624)

	On review from the Court of Appeals.*

	Argued and submitted March 6, 1998.

	Richard M. Walsh, Salem, argued the cause and filed the
petition for petitioner on review.

	Robert M. Atkinson, Assistant Attorney General, Salem,
argued the cause for respondents on review.  With him on the
brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Michael D.
Reynolds, Solicitor General.

	Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Van Hoomissen,
Durham, and Leeson, Justices.**

	GILLETTE, J.

	The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The order
of the Workers' Compensation Board is reversed.  The case is
remanded to the Workers' Compensation Board for further
proceedings.	

	*On judicial review of an order of the Worker's Compensation
	 Board.  149 Or App 496, 942 P2d 304 (1997).

    **Graber, J., resigned March 31, 1998, and did not
participate in this decision; Kulongoski, J., did not participate
in the consideration or decision of this case. 

		GILLETTE, J.

		The issue in this workers' compensation case involving
an occupational disease claim is whether petitioner, an employee
of the Oregon Corrections Department (Department) who claimed
that he had contracted tuberculosis (TB) while on the job,
properly was denied access to certain medical records of
prisoners in the custody of his employer.  Petitioner asserts
that those records may help him meet his burden of proof with
respect to an occupational disease claim under ORS 656.266.  An
administrative law judge (ALJ) denied petitioner access to the
records, a divided Workers' Compensation Board (Board) affirmed
that ruling, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the order of the
Board without opinion.  Coman v. Department of Corrections, 149
Or App 496, 942 P2d 304 (1997).  We allowed petitioner's petition
for review and now reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

		Petitioner is employed as a correctional sergeant at
the Oregon State Correctional Institution (OSCI).  A September
1995  skin test indicated that he had been exposed to the
organism that causes TB.  Petitioner had tested negative for TB
the previous year.  He filed a workers' compensation claim,
alleging that he had been exposed to at least one infectious case
of TB while working at OSCI.  (The record indicates that a person
can contract TB only from another person who has an active case
of the disease.)  The workers' compensation insurance carrier for
the Department investigated and determined that several staff
members(1) and inmates at OSCI also had tested positive for TB in
1995.  The carrier nonetheless concluded that there were no
active TB cases at OSCI during 1995 and, therefore, denied the
claim.

		At a hearing before the ALJ, petitioner requested an
order to compel the production of medical records of a certain
prisoner whom petitioner believed to have had active TB while
under petitioner's direct supervision at OSCI, together with the
medical records of other inmates who had tested positive for TB
in 1995.  The Department responded that the medical records of
inmates are confidential under Oregon statutory law and that, in
any event, the Department had determined that the records that
petitioner sought were irrelevant, because it had determined,
based on those and other records, that there were no active cases
of TB at OSCI. 

		Ultimately, the ALJ appears to have accepted the
Department's oral assurances through counsel that the medical
records would not help petitioner.  The ALJ ruled:

		"At this point in time I'm not sure that -- unless
you can show me that -- that [counsel for the
Department's] determination that there is no indication
the cases are active and therefore nonactive cases
can't transmit that that his decision that these were
irrelevant is inappropriate.  If you can show me that,
then perhaps we can do some kind of an in-camera or --
or something of that nature to determine.  But at this
point in time, I'm not willing to say they need to turn
everything over to you.  That may be developed by
further testimony from the medical staff or from [a
medical witness on behalf of petitioner]."

(Emphasis added.)

		As the foregoing makes clear, the ALJ's ruling was
confined to the issue of relevancy; she did not attempt to
determine whether, or how, she might deal with issues surrounding
the confidentiality of any records that she otherwise might
determine to be discoverable.  Without the records or other
evidence corroborating his theory that he had contracted TB at
OSCI, the ALJ held that petitioner's claim failed for lack of
proof.  As noted, a divided Workers' Compensation Board affirmed,
and the Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling. 

		On review before this court, the Department does not
attempt to defend the ALJ's decision on relevancy grounds. 
Instead, it focuses entirely on an alternative argument that it
had made to the ALJ, viz., the confidentiality of the records
that petitioner sought.

		That is the appropriate inquiry.  The record
establishes that the records that petitioner sought were
relevant:  Other persons at the prison had tested positive for TB
for the first time during the same period in which petitioner
tested positive for the first time; at least one inmate had been
transferred to another institution after testing positive for TB
-- the standard way in which active cases of the disease were
handled by the Department; and the Department and its insurance
carrier had used the very records that petitioner sought to make
their own determination whether there were active cases of TB at
the prison, thereby demonstrating that they regarded those
records as relevant to that inquiry.  It follows that, absent
some legal barrier to their disclosure, the ALJ erred in failing
to order that the records be turned over in some form to
petitioner as discoverable material.(2)

  		We believe that the following summary accurately
describe's the Department's position in this case:  (1) By
statute, the records that petitioner sought were confidential;
(2) because the records were confidential, the Department would
have declined to produce them, even had the ALJ ordered their
production; and (3) because the ALJ could not have allowed
petitioner to have access to the records, she could not have
committed reversible error in declining to order production of
those records in the first place.

		It is true, as the Department argues, that it is
required to keep the medical records of inmates confidential. 
ORS 179.495 provides:

		"(1) Medical case histories, clinical records, X-rays, treatment charts, 
progress reports and other
similar written accounts of the inmates of any
Department of Corrections institution * * *, maintained
in such institution by the officers or employees
thereof who are authorized to maintain such histories,
records, X-rays, charts, reports and other accounts
within the official scope of their duties, shall not be
subject to inspection except upon * * * order of a
court of competent jurisdiction.  The restriction
contained in this section shall not apply to inspection
or release of written accounts made * * * with the
consent of the individual concerned, or in case of the
incompetence of the inmate, by the legal guardian of
the inmate."

(Emphasis added.)  "Inspection," the Department argues, is a term
of common usage and should be given its "plain, natural, and
ordinary meaning."  See PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries,
317 Or 606, 611, 859 P2d 1143 (1993) (prescribing that standard
for construing words of common meaning in statutes).  The word
"inspect" means to look at or examine closely.  Webster's Third
New Int'l Dictionary, 1170 (unabridged ed 1993).  Thus, the
Department reasons, it may not be required to disclose inmates'
medical records -- period.

		That premise is mistaken.  As the emphasized wording
shows, the statutory prohibition is not absolute.  The statute
declares that inspection of such records may be directed "upon
order of a court of competent jurisdiction."  The question thus
arises:  Is there a way in which a court of competent
jurisdiction might issue such an order?  There is.  

		An ALJ has statutory authority to administer oaths, ORS
656.724(4); 656.726(2)(b), and to "[i]ssue * * * subpoenas for
the attendance of witnesses and the production of papers,
contracts, books, accounts, documents and testimony."  ORS
656.724(4); 656.726(2)(c).  If any such subpoena is disobeyed --
as the Department posits that it would have disobeyed a subpoena
for the medical records at issue in this case -- then the ALJ may
apply to a circuit court for enforcement of the subpoena.  ORS
656.732.(3)  An order of a circuit court, issued pursuant to the
procedure contemplated by ORS 656.732, would satisfy the
requirement in ORS 179.495 of "an order of a court of competent
jurisdiction."

		The foregoing discussion deals with all three parts of
the Department's argument:  (1) The records are not absolutely
undiscoverable; (2) there is a method by which an ALJ's order to
produce the records for inspection could be enforced by a court
of competent jurisdiction; and, therefore, (3) the ALJ would have
been in error, had she declined to order their disclosure in
these circumstances.

		Because the Department's confidentiality argument
fails, we are left with the ALJ's relevancy ruling.  As we have
indicated, that ruling was erroneous.  Petitioner was prejudiced,
because he was unable to produce corroborating evidence (in
addition to his own testimony and the surrounding circumstances)
to show that he had contracted TB on the job, and his failure to
do so was the basis on which his claim was denied on the merits. 
Petitioner is entitled to some form of disclosure of the medical
records at issue and, if those records contain any evidence
supporting his claim, to a new hearing at which that evidence can
be introduced.

		We have held that the records in question are relevant
and discoverable and that there is a legally efficacious way in
which the ALJ could order, and the Department could be required
to provide, those records.  The foregoing conclusion requires
that the case be remanded to the Board with instructions to
remand the case to the ALJ to grant discovery of the requested
medical records under such circumstances as the ALJ shall find to
be appropriate.

		The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
order of the Workers' Compensation Board is reversed.  The case
is remanded to the Workers' Compensation Board for further
proceedings.

1. 	Records of staff members are not at issue in the case
before us.

2. 	The materials at issue are crucial to petitioner's
case, and the Department does not argue that, if the Department's
confidentiality argument is incorrect, then the ALJ nonetheless
retained discretion to deny discovery.  We thus are not faced
with a case in which it is argued that relevant material should
not be disclosed, because the party seeking the material has not
shown a need for it sufficient to overcome policy reasons that
favor nondisclosure.  

3. 	ORS 656.732 provides:

		"The circuit court for any county, or the judge of
such court, on application of * * * [an] Administrative
Law Judge * * *, shall compel obedience to subpoenas
issued and served pursuant to ORS 656.726 and shall
punish disobedience of any such subpoena or any refusal
to testify at any authorized session or hearing or to
answer any lawful inquiry of the * * * Administrative
Law Judge[] * * *, in the same manner as a refusal to
testify in the circuit court or the disobedience of the
requirements of a subpoena issued from the court is
punished."