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March 11, 2026 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

Forsberg v. Providence Health & Services - Oregon

Court of Appeals of Oregon

• Citations: 347 Or. App. 672
• Docket Number: A183239
• Precedential Status: Non-Precedential
• Judges: Egan

• Disposition: Affirmed.

• Opinion

• Authorities (3)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (0)

• PDF

Disposition

Affirmed.

Combined Opinion

672 March 11, 2026 No. 185

This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
STATE OF OREGON

In the Matter of the Compensation of Marie Forsberg,
Claimant.
Marie FORSBERG,
Petitioner,
v.
PROVIDENCE HEALTH & SERVICES - OREGON,
Respondent.
Workers’ Compensation Board
2005822;
A183239

Submitted May 12, 2025.
Marie Forsberg filed the briefs pro se.
Rebecca A. Watkins and SBH Legal filed the brief for
respondent.
Before Aoyagi, Presiding Judge, Egan, Judge, and Joyce,
Judge.
EGAN, J.
Affirmed.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 347 Or App 672 (2026) 673

EGAN, J.
Claimant seeks judicial review of an order of the
Workers’ Compensation Board (board) upholding employer
Providence Health and Services’s denial of her workers’
compensation claim for a COVID-like respiratory illness.
We review the board’s order under ORS 656.298(7) and ORS
183.482(7) and (8) for substantial evidence and errors of law,
conclude that the board’s order is supported by substantial
evidence and substantial reason and that there was no error,
and therefore affirm.
Claimant, who worked for employer as a home
health case worker, filed an injury claim for a COVID-like
illness. Employer denied the claim, and claimant requested
a hearing. At the hearing, the parties presented medical
evidence, and claimant testified about her symptoms, con-
ditions, and causation. The administrative law judge (ALJ)
issued an order with findings and conclusions and upheld
employer’s denial. The board adopted the ALJ’s findings
and conclusions and affirmed the order.
In her pro se brief on judicial review, claimant raises
a myriad of procedural issues that were not raised at the
hearing or before the board. Those issues include claimant’s
concerns about a conflict of interest with the ALJ, the with-
drawal of an exhibit, the ability to call witnesses, the weight
given COVID tests, the intimidation she felt during the
legal process, and her confusion over the process of access to
the transcript of the hearing. A careful review of the record
reveals that none of those issues were raised in the proceed-
ings below.
For us to review an issue, a party must preserve
that issue by raising it in the hearing or before the board.
ORAP 5.45(1); Balcom v. Knowledge Learning Enterprises,
256 Or App 615, 622-23, 302 P3d 1208, rev den, 354 Or 386
(2013). Pro se litigants are often unfamiliar with the prin-
ciple of preservation. It encompasses the rule that parties
must raise and articulate issues at each stage of an adminis-
trative process to afford the agency involved an opportunity
to address them. To preserve an issue for judicial review, “a
party must provide [the agency] with an explanation of his
674 Forsberg v. Providence Health & Services - Oregon

or her objection that is specific enough to ensure that the
[agency] can identify its alleged error with enough clarity
to permit it to consider and correct the alleged error imme-
diately, if correction is warranted.” State v. Wyatt, 331 Or
335, 343, 15 P3d 22 (2000). Claimant’s asserted procedural
errors would not have been obvious to the ALJ or the board
such that they could have been considered and corrected
without having been raised by claimant. Thus, we conclude
that the asserted procedural errors were not preserved, and
we therefore decline to consider them.
However, claimant did preserve her challenge
to employer’s denial of her workers’ compensation claim.
Turning to that issue, and reviewing the board’s order for
substantial evidence, substantial reason, and errors of
law—see ORS 656.298(7); ORS 183.482(7); see Estrada v.
Federal Express Corp., 298 Or App 111, 120, 445 P3d 1276,
rev den, 365 Or 769 (2019) (substantial evidence supports
a factual finding when the record as a whole would permit
a reasonable person to make such a finding)—we conclude
that the board’s order is supported by substantial evidence
and substantial reason and, further, that the board did not
commit legal error.
Our review of the record leads us to conclude that
substantial evidence supports the board’s findings, includ-
ing its findings as to the timing of claimant’s symptoms,
the onset of her illness, and the content of the expert opin-
ions. Furthermore, the board gave reasoned explanations
for each of its factual determinations. Guild v. SAIF, 291 Or
App 793, 796, 422 P3d 376 (2018) (“[T]o be supported by sub-
stantial evidence, the [agency’s decision] must indicate what
findings [the agency] made and how those findings led to the
[agency’s] ultimate conclusions.”). As we conclude that the
board’s order is supported by substantial evidence and sub-
stantial reason, we reject claimant’s challenge to the board’s
order upholding employer’s denial of her claim.
Affirmed.