Lowells v. SAIF Corp., 396 P.3d 241

Claimant, a long-time home health care worker, filed an occupational disease claim for chronic low-back pain after years of physically strenuous work and a prior accepted 2011 lumbosacral strain claim.
Imaging showed mild, age-typical degenerative changes but no clear objective findings explaining the pain.
Treating physician Dr. Ingle and IME Dr. Staver opined that claimant’s weight, deconditioning, and tobacco use were the major contributing causes of her symptoms; both said work was at most a significant, not the major, contributor.
SAIF denied the claim; an ALJ and the Workers’ Compensation Board upheld denial on the ground that personal factors were the major contributors, so work was not the major contributing cause.
Claimant sought judicial review, arguing as a matter of law that personal susceptibilities (age, weight, deconditioning) cannot be treated as causes when determining major contributing cause.
The court reviewed statutory definitions and precedent and affirmed the board, finding the board permissibly treated claimant’s personal factors as causes based on medical evidence.

Issue	Claimant's Argument	SAIF/Board's Argument	Held
Whether personal factors (age, weight, deconditioning, smoking) may be treated as causes rather than merely susceptibilities when weighing "major contributing cause."	Personal factors are only susceptibilities/predispositions and, as a matter of law, cannot be treated as causes in the major-contributing-cause analysis.	If medical evidence shows personal factors actively contributed to the condition, they are causes and must be weighed with other causes to determine the major contributing cause.	Held: Personal factors can be causes if medical evidence shows they actively contributed; the board permissibly weighed them and found they were the major contributing cause.
Whether the record supports the board’s finding that work was not the major contributing cause.	Record does not support finding; claimant’s work was strenuous and contributed substantially to pain.	Treating and IME physicians opined weight and deconditioning were the major contributors; little objective pathology tied to work.	Held: Substantial evidence (treating and IME opinions) supports the board’s factual finding that nonwork factors were the major contributors, so claim fails.

Bowen v. Fred Meyer Stores, 202 Or App 558 (discusses major contributing cause standard and causation weighing)
Liberty Northwest Ins. Corp. v. Spurgeon, 109 Or App 566 (explains distinction between susceptibilities and causes and that all causes must be weighed)
Multnomah County v. Obie, 207 Or App 482 (a mere vulnerability is not a contributing preexisting condition)
Portland Adventist Medical Center v. Buckallew, 124 Or App 141 (medical evidence may show a condition creates susceptibility but not cause)
Corkum v. Bi-Mart Corp., 271 Or App 411 (clarifies when a condition merely increases susceptibility versus actively contributing to damage)