E.C.D., Inc. v. Snider

1 Citing case

  1. Bennett v. Liberty Northwest Ins. Corp.

    128 Or. App. 71 (Or. Ct. App. 1994)   Cited 6 times
    In Bennett v. Liberty Northwest Ins. Corp., 128 Or. App. 71, 875 P.2d 1176 (1994), the claimant suffered from tinnitus and hearing loss. He had worked at two different employers, both of which had conditions that could have caused his disease.

    The Board affirmed and adopted the referee's order. It relied on Garcia v. Boise Cascade Corp., 103 Or. App. 508, 798 P.2d 265 (1990), to hold that, because Siltec was the only potentially responsible employer left in the case after claimant entered into the DCS with Caterpillar, claimant had elected to prove actual causation against Siltec and could not rely on the last injurious exposure rule to establish the compensability of his claim. It distinguished E.C.D., Inc. v. Snider, 105 Or. App. 416, 805 P.2d 147 (1991), and Meyer v. SAIF, 71 Or. App. 371, 692 P.2d 656 (1984), rev den 299 Or. 203 (1985), on the ground that those cases, which allowed application of the last injurious exposure rule when only one employer remained in the case, involved responsibility issues only. In order to establish that his hearing loss is an occupational disease, claimant must show that it arose "out of and in the course of employment" and was "caused by substances or activities to which [he was] not ordinarily subjected or exposed other than during a period of regular actual employment * * *."