The issue in this workers’ compensation case is whether claimant, who successfully defended a referee’s award of penalties and attorney fees in an insurer’s appeal to the Workers’ Compensation Board, is entitled to attorney fees under ORS 656.382(2), even though the insurer was successful in persuading the Board to overturn the referee’s award of additional temporary total disability and to reduce the award of permanent partial disability.
ORS 656.382(2) provides:
“If a request for hearing, request for review, appeal or cross-appeal to the Court of Appeals or petition for review to the Supreme Court is initiated by an employer or insurer, and the referee, board or court finds that the compensation awarded to a claimant should not be disallowed or reduced, the employer or insurer shall be required to pay to the claimant or the attorney of the claimant a reasonable attorney fee in an amount set by the referee, board or the court for legal representation by an attorney for the claimant at and prior to the hearing, review on appeal or cross-appeal.”
The Board denied claimant’s request for attorney fees, because he had “prevailed only on the penalty/attorney fee issue and lost on the ‘compensation’ issues.” Claimant argues that attorney fees and penalties are “compensation” within the meaning of ORS 656.382(2) and that, because the Board did not reduce or disallow either of those awards, he is entitled to attorney fees for his defense of those awards.
In
Bahler v. Mail-Well Envelope Co.,
The Board in this case reduced the amount of benefits that the referee had awarded. It relied on our decision in
Barrett v. D & H Drywall,
Affirmed.
