Court Opinion

ID: 9622132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:12:29.355497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:13.912583
License: Public Domain

*640BUTTLER, P. J.
Claimant seeks review of a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Board reversing the referee’s order and holding that she is not permanently and totally disabled as a result of her compensable low back and leg injury and chronic pain syndrome.
The Board’s findings are supported by substantial evidence on the whole record. Before her low back injury in 1984, claimant worked for employer as a meat wrapper; she has not worked since 1985. The Board found that she is employable without training for four to six hours per day as a telemarketer or hotel/motel inspector. Although, as claimant contends, the Board did not make an explicit finding that she is physically capable of doing those jobs, its finding that she is employable in them is sufficient.
ORS 656.206(l)(a) defines permanent total disability in part as any disability ‘ ‘which permanently incapacitates the worker from regularly performing work at a gainful and suitable occupation.” A “suitable” occupation is “one which the worker has the ability and the training or experience to perform * * The Board’s findings support its conclusion that the suggested employment is suitable.
The statute does not define the term “gainful.” Claimant contends that, because she could earn only one-third as much as she did before the injury in either of the two suggested employments, neither of them is “gainful.” It is well settled that the ability of a claimant to perform regular part-time work precludes an award for permanent total disability. Lankford v. Commodore Corporation, 92 Or App 622, 625, 759 P2d 329 (1988); Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. Perry, 92 Or App 56, 757 P2d 437, rev den 307 Or 77 (1988); Pournelle v. SAIF, 70 Or App 56, 60, 687 P2d 1134 (1984); Hill v. SAIF, 25 Or App 697, 701, 550 P2d 752, rev den (1976); seeBohrerv. Weyerhaeuser Company, 93 Or App 751, 763 P2d 1207 (1988). We have never measured “gainfulness” as used in ORS 656.206 in terms of the claimant’s level of earnings or hours of employment.
Claimant relies on Frame v. Crown Zellerbach, 63 Or App 827, 665 P2d 879, on recon 65 Or App 801, 672 P2d 70 (1983), for the proposition that employment is “gainful” only *641if the earnings from the proposed employment bear a reasonable relationship to the worker’s pre-injury earnings. However, the question in Frame was whether the claimant was eligible for vocational assistance. OAR 436-61-004(4) required the insurer to provide vocational assistance to any worker unable to return to “gainful employment.” In discussing the meaning of the term in that context, we said:
“The purpose of the workers’ compensation legislation is to ‘restore the injured worker as soon as possible and as near as possible to a condition of self support and maintenance as an able-bodied worker.’ ORS 656.268(1). Workers’ compensation was developed not just to compensate a worker who had been injured on the job, but also to enable the worker to reenter, the job market and become employed again in a position as near as possible in pay and status to the one the claimant has been forced by injury to leave. There are no specific guidelines to determine what ‘as near as possible’ means; it must be determined on a case-by-case basis. Gainful employment, in the light of the intent of the workers’ compensation statutes (and the regulations of the Department), must bear a reasonable relationship to an individual’s experience and background, including prior earnings. For example, it would be unrealistic to expect that a worker could be seen as having been restored to employment ‘as near as possible’ to his or her former employment if he was formerly a diesel mechanic and is now working at a fast food restaurant because that was the only job he could get without retraining.” 63 Or App at 830. (Emphasis supplied.)
We adhere to the holding and analysis in Frame; however, the considerations were different in that case and the definition that we gave to “gainful” for the purpose of determining eligibility for vocational assistance does not apply here. In Frame, we correctly held that the term “gainful” in the context of eligibility for vocational assistance must he construed to require vocational assistance for workers who would not otherwise be able to return to work comparable to their pre-injury employment.
Implicit in the workers’ compensation law is the legislature’s recognition that not all workers will recover sufficiently from their compensable injuries to return to comparable work, even with vocational assistance. Those who do not are compensated for their level of permanent disability, either partial or total. ORS 656.206(l)(a) cannot be read *642to require that all workers who are unable to return to an occupation comparable in pay to their pre-injury occupation be compensated for permanent total disability, even if they are capable of some work. That would be contrary to the legislature’s decision to compensate partial disability as partial disability. ORS 656.214(5). It would also frustrate the legislative goal of encouraging those who are capable of returning to work, even if only on a regular part-time basis, to do so. ORS 656.012(2)(c).
A worker is permanently and totally disabled if the injury has left her incapable of performing any service for which there exists a hypothetically normal labor market. See, e.g., Wilson v. Weyerhaeuser, 30 Or App 403, 567 P2d 567 (1977); see also Harris v. SAIF, 292 Or 683, 642 P2d 1147 (1982). The converse of that is also true: A worker who is capable of performing regularly any service for which there exists a hypothetically normal labor market can be gainfully employed and, therefore, is not permanently and totally disabled, as the term is used in ORS 656.206(l)(a).
Here, the evidence supports the Board’s findings that claimant is capable of working regularly as a telemarketer or hotel/motel inspector, albeit on a part-time basis, and that the work is available. Although that employment may not pay as well as her pre-injury occupation, it is remunerative and is, therefore, gainful.1 The Board did not err in concluding that claimant is not entitled to an award for permanent total disability.
Affirmed.

 Claimant does not contend that she is entitled to additional vocational services or that she has been denied them.