Opinion ID: 2606157
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying the Statutory Scheme to This Case

Text: The 1984 hearing order allowed and opened an aggravation claim, reversing a denial by EBI. The claim was opened to provide additional medical treatment and to consider permanent disability following that treatment. The order expressly provided that future TTD be paid as authorized by    claimant's treating physician. When the aggravation claim was allowed, the statutory right to TTD compensation arose, applicable to any future period during which the worker was disabled by the 1984 surgery related to the work injury. ORS 656.210(1). This court is not authorized to modify that statute by reading it to not apply to an aggravation or worsening claim. The 1984 aggravation claim is presently before this court, following a determination order on October 7, 1985, a timely request for hearing, the 1986 referee's hearing and order, and the subsequent, statutorily provided, reviews by the Board, the Court of Appeals, and this court. The 1984 order and the 1986 order are but separate parts of the same aggravation claim, i.e., the orders were entered in the same administrative proceeding now before us on judicial review. The finality required to invoke claim preclusion has not yet attached to the compensation proceeding of which the 1984 hearing was a part. Like Kepford v. Weyerhaeuser Co., supra , the TTD entitlement in controversy here is for periods and amounts arising after the original claim was determined and after the 1984 hearing was concluded. Like North Clackamas School Dist. v. White, supra , the first hearing on the aggravation claim in 1984 established that the work injury produced the need for treatment. Treatment thereafter caused the time loss which triggered TTD entitlement. Only when the doctor later authorized TTD periods did the statutory entitlement to TTD take effect. And, at that point, the right to TTD arose anew as part of the aggravation claim, which is still open and now before this court. The question of the proper rate of TTD payment is but one of many issues involved in that ongoing claim for aggravation. No finality has yet been accorded the aggravation claim opened in 1984, and no splitting of that claim occurred. We conclude that neither issue nor claim preclusion applies to the TTD rate issue. [13] But could the Board have properly affirmed on the referee's theory that the contention was waived? No, the conditions required to bar a contention by waiver are not met in this case. First, ORS 656.262(9), in effect at that time, provided: [N]or shall mere acceptance of such compensation be considered a waiver of the right to question the amount thereof. Second, our cases hold that waiver is the intentional relinquishment of a known right. Brown v. Portland School Dist. #1, 291 Or. 77, 84, 628 P.2d 1183 (1981); see also Waterway Terminals v. P.S. Lord, 242 Or. 1, 26-27, 406 P.2d 556 (1965) (quoting a description of the rule of waiver in McMillan v. Montgomery, 121 Or. 28, 32, 253 P. 879 (1927)). The record before us provides no basis for concluding that claimant intentionally relinquished  i.e., waived  his right to seek the correct amount of temporary total disability by his silence on the subject in 1984. Payments would accrue, if ever, after the time of the hearing. In 1981 and 1984, the worker did not know of the mistake and, thus, could not have intentionally waived the right to correct it. The referee erred when she found that the right to seek a correction was waived. The Board erred when it affirmed the referee. The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the order of the Workers' Compensation Board is remanded to the Board for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.