Court Opinion

ID: 9854010
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:59:06.247503+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:52.468338
License: Public Domain

GRABER, P. J.,
dissenting.
I dissent. Although I agree with the majority’s deletion of the next-to-last sentence of our opinion, I would adhere to that opinion with that modification. The majority has answered the wrong question and has thereby deprived Robbins’ estate of benefits to which it is entitled.
The majority errs in applying Bos v. Ind. Acc. Com., 211 Or 138, 315 P2d 172 (1957). That case, as well as the two later ones that the majority cites, did not consider the issue in the present case: whether the claimant’s injury arose in the course of employment. The question in those cases was whether the claimant was a “nonsubject worker,” as defined in ORS 656.027(2). Only in that context does it make sense to “attempt to classify the overall nature of the claimant’s duties,” 100 Or App at 730, rather than to examine the specific connection between the injury and the employment. Indeed, the majority shows that it has confused the concepts of covered worker and compensable injury when it says:
“The fact that Robbins was killed while performing a task that was unrelated to the salvage project just before he and Marca were to depart from the work site does not remove Robbins from the protection of the Workers’ Compensation Law.” 100 Or App at 730.
There is no dispute that Robbins was a covered worker. The only issue is whether his fatal injuries occurred in the course of his employment and were, therefore, excluded from coverage under Marca’s liability insurance policy.
The proper test focuses, not on the worker, as in Bos v. Ind. Acc. Com., supra, but on the injury. We cited Rogers v. SAIF, 289 Or 633, 642, 616 P2d 485 (1980), and explained the Rogers test in detail, in Preston v. SAIF, 88 Or App 327, 330, 745 P2d 783 (1987). In our opinion, we analyzed the application of Rogers, and the majority does not suggest that we did so incorrectly. Instead, it applies a standard for construing a different section of the statute. Even if the Bos analysis were *732somehow relevant, Rogers controls to the extent that the two cases are inconsistent.
Robbins was not acting in the course of his employment when he died. The majority distorts the workers’ compensation statutes when it decides otherwise. Accordingly, I dissent.