71 Van Natta 778 (2019)
In the Matter of the Compensation of JUBAL L. ROWTON, Claimant
WCB No. 18-02003
Oregon Worker Compensation
July 12, 2019
Elmer
& Brunot PC Law Offices, Claimant Attorneys
SAIF
Legal Salem, Defense Attorneys
Reviewing Panel: Members Lanning and Curey.
ORDER ON REVIEW
The
SAIF Corporation requests review of Administrative Law Judge
(ALJ) Mills’s order that set aside its denial of
claimant’s injury claim for a left inguinal hernia. On
review, the issue is compensability.
We
adopt and affirm the ALJ’s order with the following
supplementation.
For the
reasons expressed in the ALJ’s decision, we do not find
that claimant, whom the ALJ found to be a credible witness
based on his demeanor,[1] was an unreliable historian because
of his faulty recollection of the precise date of his work
injury, which was otherwise established by medical evidence.
See Warren Smith, 71 Van Natta 279, 280 (2019)
(existence of some inconsistencies in the record did not
diminish the claimant’s credibility where record as a
whole supported his testimony).
Similarly,
although claimant’s attending surgeon, Dr. Laro, had an
initially inaccurate history regarding the date of the work
injury, we find that his opinion was nonetheless persuasive
because it was based on an accurate mechanism of the injury.
Moreover, Dr. Laro was subsequently provided a corrected
history and specifically indicated that it did not impact his
causation analysis. (Ex. 18-2). Therefore, we decline to
discount Dr. Laro’s opinion on this basis. See
Jackson County v. Wehren, 186 Or.App. 555, 561 (2003) (a
history is complete if it includes sufficient information on
which to base the physician’s opinion and does not
exclude information that would make the opinion less
credible).
Finally,
we address SAIF’s argument that the record does not
establish that claimant was involved in two discrete work
incidents involving a water heater, one on January 4, 2018,
and a second on or about January 13, 2018. Given that we are
[71 Van Natta 779] adopting the...
