State redefines repetitive use impairment following ruling
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Injured workers in Oregon will have to show limited repetitive use of a body part for two-thirds of the time to qualify for a chronic condition impairment rating, according to a memorandum issued Monday by the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, Workers’ Compensation Division.
In its latest interpretation of “significantly limited in repetitive use” follows a state Court of Appeals ruling in Broeke v. SAIF on Oct. 16 in which an injured warehouse worker’s long-term employment caused him to suffer from plantar fasciitis in each foot and the appeals court ruled he proved 15% impairment on the basis of his proven limited function.
To clarify state law on the matter, the division restated code in its memo that a “worker is entitled to a 5 percent chronic condition impairment value for each applicable body part, when a preponderance of medical opinion establishes that, due to a chronic and permanent medical condition, the worker is significantly limited in the repetitive use of one or more of the listed body parts.”
Further clarifying, the memo interprets the code — taken into account new case law — the definition of “significantly limited” and applies it to mean that “confined or restricted (“limited”) ‘repetitive use’ under (state law) as important, meaningful, or notable (“significant”) when the worker has permanently lost the ability to repetitively use the body part for more than two-thirds of a period of time (or said another way, when the worker is only able to repetitively use the body part for less than one-third of a period of time).”
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