Oregon: Court Construes Post-Smothers Statute of Limitations Issue

A post-Smothers [see Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 332 Ore. 83, 23 P3d 333 (2001), overruled by Horton v. Or. Health & Sci. Univ., 359 Ore. 168, 376 P.3d 998 (2016)] statute of limitations, ORS 656.019(2)(a), which allows a civil action to be filed within 180 days after an unsuccessful workers' compensation claim against an employer—including a public employer—has become final, even if more than two years has elapsed since the alleged loss or injury, prevails over a conflicting statute of limitations, ORS 30.275(9), which purports to limit the filing of any claim to a two-year period following the injury, held a state appellate court. The court observed that ORS 656.019(2)(a) was the more specific statute. Moreover, it had been enacted some 20 years later than ORS 30.275(9). Under those circumstances, ORS 656.019(2)(a) controlled and the plaintiff's civil action was, therefore, timely filed.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Preble v. Centennial Sch. Dist. No. 287, 298 Ore. App. 357, 2019 Ore. App. LEXIS 848 (June 26, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 126.13.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see