Plaintiff employer sued defendant employee for breach of a noncompetition provision in their employment contract. The trial court found the noncompetition agreement void and unenforceable under ORS 653.295 because it was not entered into at the start of employment or with a bona fide advancement, dismissed the claim, and awarded defendant $25,000 in attorney fees under a provision in the contract and ORS 20.096(1). The Court of Appeals reversed the fee award, and the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed that decision. The court reasoned that the attorney-fee clause was integrated into and dependent on the noncompetition provision, so once that provision was ruled void there was no remaining contractual basis for awarding fees to the prevailing party.
In this product liability action, the plaintiff claimed that silicone from her ruptured breast implants had migrated through her body and caused neurological injuries, while defendants argued her symptoms resulted from fibromyalgia. The trial court excluded the causation opinion of plaintiff's expert neurologist after an in limine hearing on its scientific reliability, leading to a defense verdict. The Court of Appeals reversed, and the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the expert's differential diagnosis, based on clinical examinations and a pattern observed in other implant patients, satisfied the low relevance threshold and foundational requirements for admissibility of expert scientific testimony under state evidence rules.
The case concerned a challenge by the Executive Director of the Oregon State Bar to the Attorney General's certified ballot title for a proposed initiative that would amend the state constitution to add a 'None of the Above' option on judicial election ballots. The Supreme Court of Oregon reviewed the caption and result statements for substantial compliance with ORS 250.035 and concluded that they were deficient because they failed to adequately identify the measure's primary subject of creating the new voting option. The court therefore modified the caption to reference the 'None of the Above' choice and adjusted the result statements accordingly before certifying the revised ballot title. The decision rested on the requirement that a caption must reasonably convey the full scope of the proposed measure and that the Attorney General's version understated the central change to the judicial election process.
This case concerns whether an insured plaintiff must first arbitrate disputes over the denial or reduction of personal injury protection (PIP) benefits under an Oregon automobile insurance policy before pursuing court claims alleging fraud, negligence, and breach of contract related to the insurer's use of medical review reports. The Oregon Supreme Court, answering certified questions from the federal district court, held that ORS 742.520(6) and ORS 742.522 require mandatory binding arbitration of disputes about the amount or denial of PIP benefits. The court reasoned that the statute applies to such coverage disputes regardless of allegations that the denial stemmed from fraudulent or negligent medical reviews, and that arbitration must precede litigation on those issues even if related tort or contract claims are also asserted. The provisions do not apply to the non-insurer defendants involved in the medical review process.
This case involved a workers' compensation claim by Jody N. Hayes, an employee of Fred Meyer, who was stabbed and injured by a stranger in the employer's parking lot after finishing her shift and shopping briefly in the store for about 15-20 minutes. The Workers' Compensation Board ruled the injury compensable under the parking lot exception to the going and coming rule, finding it arose out of and occurred in the course of employment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Oregon Supreme Court also affirmed, concluding that the brief post-shift shopping did not break the employment connection and that a causal link existed between the injury and employment-related risks in the parking lot. The court applied the statutory work-connection test, requiring both prongs to be satisfied to some degree based on time, place, circumstances, and causal relationship to employment.
This case consolidated challenges by public employee unions and individuals to Ballot Measure 8 (1994), which added Sections 10, 11, and 12 to Article IX of the Oregon Constitution, altering public employees' PERS benefits by ending employer pick-up of the six percent employee contribution, eliminating a guaranteed rate of return, and changing sick leave credits. The circuit courts granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, ruling that these provisions impaired existing PERS contracts. On appeal, the Oregon Supreme Court agreed, holding that Sections 10, 11, and 12 violate the Contracts Clause of the United States Constitution because they substantially alter the terms of the plaintiffs' contractual rights under their collective bargaining agreements and employment customs with public employers. The court therefore declared those sections void.
