Oregon Worker’s Claim Against State Runs into Workers’ Comp Immunity Barrier

Case File

An Oregon worker injured in a collision with an ODOT snowplow could not pursue a negligence claim against the state despite arguing that the statutory bar violated the Oregon Constitution's Remedy Clause. The Court of Appeals held that Crandall v. State did not eliminate the state's sovereign immunity and that the legislature may retain immunity for claims against the state itself.

Case

Tommila v. Oregon Department of Transportation, No. A189054 (Or. Ct. App. 08/05/26, unpublished)

What Happened?

A worker traveling for work for a private employer was injured when her vehicle was involved in a crash with an Oregon Department of Transportation snowplow. She brought a negligence action against the state.

The ODOT moved for summary judgment, arguing that state law immunized against "any claim for injury to or death of any person covered by any workers' compensation law."

The worker argued that applying the statute to bar her negligence claim violated the Remedy Clause of Article I, section 10 of the Oregon Constitution. The trial court granted summary judgment in the state's favor.

On appeal, the worker argued that Crandall v. State, 584 P.3d 1197 (Or. 2026) held that the statute could not constitutionally be applied to deny the remedy of recovery through a common-law negligence action to privately employed people who are injured on the job by negligent state employees.

Rule of Law

The Oregon Tort Claims Act represents the state's partial waiver of sovereign immunity. Claims against the state itself—rather than a state employee—must conform to its terms to fall within that limited waiver.

The Remedy Clause protects access to remedies for certain injuries. However, a plaintiff must first show that a remedy existed against the defendant at common law. Because sovereign immunity historically barred claims against the state itself, the court concluded that the plaintiff could not establish such a remedy against the state.

What the Oregon Court of Appeals Said

The court ruled against the worker, noting that she did not file a negligence claim. against one or more state employees such that she could not be deprived of a remedy. Instead, she filed her claim against the state itself.

"The legislature's decision to leave the state's sovereign immunity in place to some extent does not violate Article I, section 10," the court wrote, quoting the Crandall case. "When the state's government, or a division of it, is the defendant, a statutory limitation on the defendant's liability, 'does not deny plaintiff any right he has against the [defendant] by virtue of the guarantee in Oregon Constitution Article I, section 10, because there never was such a right.'"

Practice Pointer: After Crandall, plaintiffs may still pursue constitutional arguments regarding claims against individual state employees, but this case confirms that Oregon's sovereign immunity remains a separate barrier when the defendant is the state itself.

Verdict: The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's ruling.

Takeaway

In Oregon, although the Crandall decision held that ORS 30.265(6)(a) violated the Remedy Clause of the Oregon Constitution when the statute barred claims against negligent state employees, it did not hold that the state waived its own sovereign immunity or that it could not constitutionally assert that immunity on claims for injury of a person covered by workers' compensation.

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