ORS 656.012: Findings and policy.

(1) The Legislative Assembly finds that: (a) The performance of various industrial enterprises necessary to the enrichment and economic well-being of all the citizens of this state will inevitably involve injury to some of the workers employed in those enterprises; (b) The method provided by the common law for compensating injured workers involves long and costly litigation, without commensurate benefit to either the injured workers or the employers, and often requires the taxpayer to provide expensive care and support for the injured workers and their dependents; and (c) An exclusive, statutory system of compensation will provide the best societal measure of those injuries that bear a sufficient relationship to employment to merit incorporation of their costs into the stream of commerce. (2) In consequence of these findings, the objectives of the Workers’ Compensation Law are declared to be as follows: (a) To provide, regardless of fault, sure, prompt and complete medical treatment for injured workers and fair, adequate and reasonable income benefits to injured workers and their dependents; (b) To provide a fair and just administrative system for delivery of medical and financial benefits to injured workers that reduces litigation and eliminates the adversary nature of the compensation proceedings, to the greatest extent practicable, while providing for access to adequate representation for injured workers; (c) To restore the injured worker physically and economically to a self-sufficient status in an expeditious manner and to the greatest extent practicable; (d) To encourage maximum employer implementation of accident study, analysis and prevention programs to reduce the economic loss and human suffering caused by industrial accidents; and (e) To provide the sole and exclusive source and means by which subject workers, their beneficiaries and anyone otherwise entitled to receive benefits on account of injuries or diseases arising out of and in the course of employment shall seek and qualify for remedies for such conditions. (3) In recognition that the goals and objectives of this Workers’ Compensation Law are intended to benefit all citizens, it is declared that the provisions of this law shall be interpreted in an impartial and balanced manner. [1981 c.535 §29 (enacted in lieu of 656.004); 1995 c.332 §4; amendments by 1995 c.332 §4a repealed by 1999 c.6 §1; amendments by 1999 c.6 §3 repealed by 2001 c.865 §23; 2015 c.521 §1]