Justia Oregon Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In the case brought before the Supreme Court of the State of Oregon, two petitioners, Hugh Ady and Reed Scott-Schwalbach, challenged the Attorney General's certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 30 (2024) (IP 30). IP 30 proposed to establish a program providing state funding to families incurring "qualified expenses" for educating their children outside of the public school system. The funding would have been provided through a new "Education Savings Account Program" and would have been available to households having an adjusted gross income of $125,000 or less.The petitioners raised several objections to the ballot title, which the court mostly rejected. However, the court agreed with petitioner Scott-Schwalbach that the "yes" result statement and the summary were inaccurate in stating that IP 30 "allows additional virtual charter programs." The court clarified that state law doesn't cap virtual charter programs, but rather enrollment in those programs. IP 30 proposed to increase the enrollment cap, not the number of programs. As such, the court referred the "yes" result statement and the summary back to the Attorney General for correction. View "Ady v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Thomas Lowell provided piano tuning services to defendant Medford School District and assisted in producing concerts performed in defendant’s facilities. While providing production assistance for a particular concert, plain- tiff noticed an echo near the stage. He complained to the school theater technician, Stephanie Malone, and, later, feeling that Malone had not adequately responded, he followed up with her. Malone reported to her supervisor that plaintiff appeared to be intoxicated, that he “smelled of alcohol,” and that “this was not the first time.” The supervisor repeated Malone’s statements to a district support services assistant. The assistant sent emails summarizing Malone’s statements to three other district employees, including the supervisor of purchasing. The assistant expressed concerns that appearing on district property under the influence of alcohol violated district policy and the terms of plaintiff’s piano tuning contract. Plaintiff brought this defamation action against Malone, the supervisor and assistant, later substituting the School district for the individual defendants. Defendant answered, asserting multiple affirmative defenses, including the one at issue here: that public employees are entitled to an absolute privilege for defamatory statements made in the course and scope of their employment. The trial court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment on that basis. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed, finding that defendant as a public employer, did not have an affirmative defense of absolute privilege that entitled it to summary judgment. View "Lowell v. Medford School Dist. 549C" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the legal sufficiency of the Attorney General’s certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 21 (2018). IP 21, if enacted, would alter the Oregon tax with respect to certain tobacco products in four ways: (1) increase the tax on cigarettes by 100 mills per cigarette, or $2.00 per pack; (2) eliminate the 50-cent cap on cigar taxes; (3) require that all moneys received from the new cigarette tax be first deposited with the state treasurer and, after the payment of any refunds for overpayments, be credited to the Public Health Account, “to be used for the funding of local public health authorities in all areas of the state for public health programs;” and (4) the tax and the use of cigarette-tax revenues would apply retroactively to the distribution of cigarettes and tobacco products on or after January 1, 2018. In this case, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded that, in two respects, the Attorney General’s certified ballot title did not substantially comply with the law. Therefore, it was referred back to the Attorney General for modification. View "Wilson/Fitz v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

This case concerned an employment discrimination dispute between Portland State University (PSU) and Portland State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (the Association). Those entities entered into a collective bargaining agreement that included a dispute resolution process for alleged violations of the agreement. That dispute resolution process included a "Resort to Other Procedures" (ROP) provision that permitted PSU to decline or discontinue a grievance proceeding if an Association member brought a claim regarding the same matter in an agency or court outside of PSU. PSU invoked that provision to halt a grievance proceeding after an Association member filed discrimination complaints with two outside agencies. The Association subsequently filed a complaint with the Oregon Employment Relations Board (ERB), alleging in part that PSU had engaged in an unfair labor practice by discontinuing the contractual grievance proceeding. ERB concluded that PSU's invocation of the ROP clause constituted unlawful discrimination. It therefore declined to enforce the ROP clause and ordered PSU to submit to the grievance process. On PSU's appeal, the Court of Appeals determined that ERB erred by applying the wrong legal standard in ordering PSU to submit to the grievance process, and it therefore reversed and remanded the case for ERB's reconsideration. The Association sought review of that decision. Upon review, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals's decision, concluding that ERB correctly held that the ROP clause at issue in this case imposed a form of employer retaliation for protected conduct that reasonably would impede or deter an employee from pursuing his or her statutory rights. "The resulting harm is neither theoretical nor trivial, but qualifies as a substantive difference in treatment. The ROP provision is therefore facially discriminatory . . . Accordingly, ERB properly declined to enforce that illegal contract provision. " View "Portland St. Univ. Ass'n of Univ. Professors v. Portland St. Univ." on Justia Law