Court Opinion

ID: 9542519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:35:16.246487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:10.942979
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
dissenting.
The majority concludes that an insurer entering into a claim disposition agreement under ORS 656.236(1)(a) does not need to include in the agreement a reservation of its lien rights in order to enforce those rights in the event that the claimant later recovers damages from a third-party tortfeasor. Because I believe that that conclusion is contrary to the express language of the statute, I respectfully dissent.
When asked to construe a statute, our task is to discern the intent of the legislature. PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610, 859 P2d 1143 (1993). The text of the statute is the best evidence of the legislature’s intent, and it is only if the text, in context, is ambiguous that we go beyond it. Id. at 610-11. The statutory text at issue here is:
“Unless otherwise specified, a [claim] disposition [agreement] resolves all matters and all rights to compensation, attorney fees and penalties potentially arising out of claims, except medical services, regardless of the conditions stated in the agreement.” ORS 656.236(1)(a) (emphasis added).
The majority concludes that “all matters” doesn’t really mean all matters but, rather, means only those matters pertaining to a claimant’s right to compensation. It reaches that conclusion by examining other provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Law and by looking to the legislative history of the amendment creating the provision at issue. In *138doing so, the majority ignores the plain, unambiguous text of the statute itself. I am at a loss to see how the phrase “all matters,” given its plain, natural and ordinary meaning, PGE, 317 Or at 611, could be read to mean anything other than all matters. By concluding otherwise, the majority has effectively erased that phrase from the statute. If, as the majority holds, the legislature intended “all matters” to mean only those matters that involve a claimant’s rights to compensation, then it did not need to refer in the statute to “all rights to compensation, attorney fees and penalties.” Under the majority’s interpretation of the statute, the phrases “all matters” and “all. rights to compensation, attorney fees and penalties” are redundant of each other. Of course, that interpretation runs afoul of the direction to us in ORS 174.010 to construe statutes, if possible, in such a way as to give effect to all of their provisions.
The majority seeks to avoid that problem by focusing on other statutes that address third-party recovery and the release of claims. It discusses the difference in meaning between the words “benefits” and “proceeds” and between the phrases “release of claim” and “cause of action.” It then concludes that, because the terms “proceeds” and “action” do not appear in ORS 656.236, the provision can apply only to benefits and claims of claimants. I fail to understand the majority’s logic. It is true that related statutes provide context for the interpretation of statutory language. However, it is unremarkable that words found in statutes specifically addressed to third-party recovery do not appear in a statute that is addressed to claim settlement rather than third-party recovery. Hence, the differences in phrasing between ORS 656.236 and the statutes on third-party recovery provide an insufficient basis to conclude that the legislature did not intend the phrase “all matters” to include an insurer’s lien.
Indeed, the only linguistically defensible interpretation of the statutory language is that the phrases “all matters” and “all rights to compensation, attorney fees and penalties” are independent of each other and are each qualified by the phrase “potentially arising out of claims.” In other words, the legislature intended that “all matters” be read as matters other than rights to compensation, attorney fees or penalties. A disposition agreement, therefore, would resolve *139a claimant’s rights to compensation, attorney fees and penalties and would resolve any other matter that might arise out of a claim. A claimant’s right to compensation necessarily will arise out of a claim, but an insurer’s lien is not a part of every claim. By adding the reference to other matters that might arise from a claim, the legislature has recognized that, in some circumstances, there may be issues other than compensation that would need to be resolved. Rather than attempt to specify the universe of matters that could arise, the legislature chose only to specify those matters that always or frequently arise and bundled the rest into the phrase “all matters.” There is no other way to read that text and, therefore, there is no need to look elsewhere for meaning.1
That understanding of the statute also happens to make sense. Insurer acknowledged that claim disposition agreements can, and do, address the disposition of an insurer’s hen rights arising from a claim. It is not surprising that they would. A claimant settling a workers’ compensation claim often would want to resolve the extent to which he or she would be required to repay the insurer the money received from it on the claim. Given that, the statute provides that the disposition agreement does resolve all matters between the claimant and the insurer, including the obligation of the claimant to repay the insurer if the claimant recovers money from a third party for the work-related injury, unless the parties provide otherwise. It thus requires the parties to decide which of their rights and obligations arising from a claim, other than the claimant’s right to medical benefits, survives the settlement, thereby avoiding later disputes over that issue. The majority errs in concluding otherwise.

 Even though I conclude that there is no need to resort to legislative history to interpret ORS 656.236(1)(a), I note that there is nothing in that history to indicate that the legislature intended only to affect the rights of claimants. The fact that the discussion was focused on the resolution of claimants’ rights does not mean that, when the legislature adopted the language that it did, the legislature meant the provision to apply only to claimants. And, even if that were the intent of the legislature, the express language that it adopted goes beyond that intent. See Deluxe Cabinet Works v. Messmer, 140 Or App 548, 554, 915 P2d 1053, rev den 324 Or 305 (1996) (“whatever the legislative history shows, the fact remains that the language of the statute cannot reasonably be read to accomplish what employer suggests, and we may not rewrite that language so that it more closely tracks with the legislature’s unenacted intentions”). '