Court Opinion

ID: 9623622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:38:09.260707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:32.420984
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
dissenting.
The majority holds that ORS 659.415 requires a worker’s injury to have been accepted as compensable before the worker’s employer can be required to reinstate the worker to employment after such an injury. Because it is evident from the text and context of ORS 659.415 that the statute does not impose that requirement on a worker’s reinstatement right, I dissent.
In interpreting a statute, the court’s task is to discern the intent of the legislature. ORS 174.020; PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 859 P2d 1143 (1993). If we can discern that intent from the text of the statute, in context, no further inquiry is necessary. Id. at 610-11.
*274As the majority explains, ORS 659.415 requires an employer to reinstate an injured worker to the worker’s job on demand if the worker has suffered a compensable injury and the former position exists and is available. 145 Or App at 272.1 “Compensable injury” is not defined in the statute. Rather than turning to the definition of compensable injury in the Workers’ Compensation Law to determine the meaning of that term, the majority simply concludes that the term requires a worker’s injury to have been accepted as compen-sable in order for the reinstatement right to exist. It states that its conclusion is consistent with reinstatement rules adopted by the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) and with the other provisions of the statute.
The majority’s conclusion improperly ignores, however, the definition of compensable injury in the Workers’ Compensation Law. It also adds a requirement to ORS 659.415 that is not found in it. In effect, the majority inserts “accepted” in front of “compensable injur/’ in the statute.2 ORS 174.010 prohibits us from doing that.
The Workers’ Compensation Law is part of the context of ORS 659.415. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the principal purpose of ORS 659.415 is
“to guarantee that an employer shall not discriminate against a disabled worker for exercising the worker’s rights under the Workers’ Compensation Law.”
Shaw v. Doyle Milling Co., 297 Or 251, 255, 683 P2d 82 (1984). Thus, when ORS 659.415 refers to a “compensable injury,” it is logical to assume that the relevant definition of *275that term is the one found in the Workers’ Compensation Law.3 That definition is found in ORS 656.005(7)(a), which provides that a
“ ‘compensable injury1 is an accidental injury * * * arising out of and in the course of employment requiring medical services or resulting in disability or death; an injury is accidental if the result is an accident, whether or not due to accidental means [.]”
The definition requires a compensable injury (1) to be accidental, (2) to arise out of employment, (3) to occur in the course of employment, and (4) to require medical services or result in disability or death. It does not include a requirement that a claim for such an injury has to have been accepted as compensable in order for the injury to be a “compensable injury.” Thus, a compensable injury, by definition, involves only the worker’s condition and not the status of the worker’s claim for that injuiy.
It is evident, then, that the requirement in ORS 659.415 that a worker have a “compensable injury” in order to be entitled to reinstatement cannot properly be understood to mean that the worker’s claim for such an injury has to have been accepted as compensable before the worker can invoke that right.4 Therefore, plaintiffs claim does not depend on whether her employer had accepted her workers’ compensation claim before she sought reinstatement. Hence, the court erred in granting partial summary judgment to defendant on the ground that her reinstatement request predated the acceptance of her compensation claim. For that *276reason, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to affirm that judgment.

 ORS 659.415(1) provides:
“A worker who has sustained a compensable injury shall be reinstated by the worker’s employer to the worker’s former position of employment upon demand for such reinstatement, if the position exists and is available and the worker is not disabled from performing the duties of such position. A worker’s former position is ‘available’ even if that position has been filled by a replacement while the injured worker was absent. If the former position is not available, the worker shall be reinstated in any other existing position which is vacant and suitable. A certificate by the attending physician that the physician approves the worker’s return to the worker’s regular employment or other suitable employment shall be prima facie evidence that the worker is able to perform such duties.”

 See note 1 above for the text of the statute.

 I recognize that a definition of a term in one statute does not control the meaning of that term in other statutes to which the definition does not expressly apply. See, e.g., Enertrol Power Monitoring Corp. v. State of Oregon, 314 Or 78, 84, 836 P2d 123 (1992). In this context, however, in which the statute protects rights secured by the Workers’ Compensation Law, I have no doubt that the term “compensable injury” in ORS 659.415 is intended to have the same meaning that it does in the Workers’ Compensation Law. That means that the relevant definition is the one found in ORS 656.005(7)(a).

 The other provisions of ORS 659.415 are consistent with that reading of the statute. See ORS 659.415(3) (outlines circumstances when the right to reinstatement is terminated). To the extent that BOLI’s reinstatement rules are inconsistent with that interpretation, they are without legal effect. BOLI has authority to adopt reasonable rules “required to carry out the purpose” of ORS 659.415. ORS 659.103(l)(e). It is not permitted to alter the requirements of the statute in doing that.