The Oregon Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed an earlier decision that found a school worker’s lawsuit over an injury she sustained while watching children on the playground ruled that the woman can sue the district for an injury that was not deemed compensable.
Linda Jean Preble was working as an educational assistant for Centennial School District, No. 287, in Portland, Ore., in 2013 when a child riding a scooter crashed into her, injuring her knee, according to Preble, v. Centennial School District, No. 287.
The district denied the claim on the grounds that hers was “a combined condition arising from the scooter accident in conjunction with a long-term degenerative knee condition, and the scooter accident that occurred at work was not the primary contributing factor to the resulting combined condition.”
;In 2016, Preble sued the district for negligence, more than two years from the date of her injury, which the district argued was time-barred. A district court agreed and dismissed the complaint.
The appeals court ruled that the trial court applied the wrong statute and that because Ms. Preble’s lawsuit was filed within a legal time frame after she wanted to prove her injury was compensable under compensation, the suit can continue.
The court wrote that “(w)hen a worker offers evidence that work was the primary contributing cause of a combined condition, but the (administrative law judge) or panel finds that evidence is less persuasive than the employer’s contrary evidence, the worker has “failed to establish that a work-related incident was the main contributory cause of the worker’s injury… “The worker may bring a civil action” under limitations established by law, of which the plaintiff’s case applies.
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