Justia Oregon Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

This case centered on a public records request made by defendant Oregonian Publishing Company, LLC (The Oregonian), a newspaper, to plaintiff Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU), a public health and research university that provided patient care at its hospital, conducted research, and educated health care professionals and scientists. The circuit court ordered OHSU to disclose the requested record, and OHSU appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded to the circuit court to examine the public records at issue and then determine whether state and federal exemptions permitted OHSU to withhold some of the requested information. On review, the issues narrowed to whether the requested record contained “protected health information” and student “education records” under federal and Oregon law and, if so, whether that information nonetheless had to be disclosed pursuant to ORS 192.420(1), a provision of the Oregon Public Records Law (OPRL). The Oregon Supreme Court concluded the requested record contained protected health information and that ORS 192.420(1) did not require the disclosure of that information. The Court declined to consider whether the part of the requested record consisting of tort claim notices filed by students contained “education records,” and, if so, whether those records were exempt from disclosure. The Court therefore reversed in part, and affirmed in part the decision of the Court of Appeals. View "OHSU v. Oregonian Publishing Co., LLC" on Justia Law

In this case, the state issued a subpoena for a witness against defendant Kenneth Harris, and the witness did not appear for trial. The state then offered hearsay evidence in lieu of live testimony, arguing that the witness’s failure to appear in response to the subpoena sufficed to establish her unavailability. Defendant argued that a witness is unavailable for confrontation purposes only when the state has exhausted all reasonable means of securing the appearance of the witness. Once the state became aware that its witness would not appear, he argued, it could have taken any number of additional actions to secure her appearance, but did not do so. The trial court offered to continue the trial to allow the state to take such additional steps, but defendant objected. The trial court then concluded that the state had made reasonable efforts to produce the witness and admitted the hearsay. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that “more could have been done” to produce the witness at trial. The Oregon Supreme Court did not decide whether the state reasonably should have pursued those other measures. Defendant did not explain, and the Supreme Court did not understand, “how the state can be faulted for failing to obtain a continuance to pursue other means of producing the witness when defendant objected to the state being allowed to do just that.” The Court surmised: by objecting to the state being allowed to take further measures to produce its witness, defendant essentially invited any error that may have resulted, and invited error is no basis for reversal. The Supreme Court rejected the state’s contention that the unavailability requirement of Article I, section 11, was satisfied when a witness fails to comply with a subpoena. The state must exhaust reasonably available measures for producing the witness. In so holding, however, the Court reiterated that the rule was one of reasonableness under the circumstances of the individual case. Under the circumstances here, defendant was in no position to complain that the trial court erred in concluding that the victim was unavailable for confrontation purposes and in admitting the 9-1-1 recording of her report. The decision of the Court of Appeals was reversed. View "Oregon v. Harris" on Justia Law

Petitioner Carvel Dillard was charged with four counts of sexual abuse in the second degree and four counts of prostitution. The indictment alleged crimes against two victims. Petitioner was not represented by counsel at trial. A jury found petitioner not guilty of the counts involving one of the victims, but found petitioner guilty of two counts involving the other victim. Petitioner unsuccessfully pursued a direct appeal. Petitioner then filed a timely pro se petition for post-conviction relief. He alleged (1) prosecutorial misconduct that, he claimed, violated his federal rights to a fair trial and due process under Brady v. Maryland, 373 US 83 (1963), and that could not reasonably have been raised and preserved before or during his trial proceedings; (2) trial court errors, including denial of appointed counsel, that, he alleged, could not effectively have been raised and preserved during the trial proceedings; (3) ineffective assistance of appellate counsel; and (4) actual innocence. Defendant, Superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary, filed a motion pursuant to ORCP 21 A(8) to dismiss the petition for failure to state ultimate facts sufficient to constitute post-conviction claims. Petitioner was represented by counsel for the hearing on his motion, and, although the pro se petition at issue requested a hearing, counsel did not request a hearing on defendant’s motion, and the post-conviction court did not grant a hearing. Instead, the court found defendant’s arguments persuasive, adopted them, and granted defendant’s motion. Subsequently, the court entered a general judgment dismissing the action “with prejudice.” Defendant conceded dismissal of the action “with prejudice” was made in error. The question this case presented for the Oregon Supreme Court’s review was whether, as defendant argued, ORS 138.525(3) bars an appellate court from correcting that error. The Supreme Court concluded the legislature did not intend to preclude appellate correction of the post-conviction court’s error. Accordingly, the Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and remanded to that court for further proceedings. View "Dillard v. Premo" on Justia Law

Petitioner Michael Haynes sought judicial review of a final order of the Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision that denied his petition to change the terms of his life imprisonment to allow for the possibility of release. The Court of Appeals dismissed the case because petitioner’s appointed counsel missed the deadline for filing a petition for judicial review in that court. The Oregon Supreme Court allowed review to consider whether petitioner, who was statutorily entitled to be assisted by counsel on review, should or must be allowed to proceed with his untimely petition for review when the late filing was entirely due to neglect by appointed counsel. Petitioner argued that his statutory right to counsel must be construed as a right to adequate counsel, that he was denied that statutory right when his counsel missed the filing deadline for judicial review, and that this court should address the statutory violation by excusing the untimely filing. Petitioner also contends that a denial of judicial review under these circumstances violated his due process rights. After review, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded petitioner was not entitled to relief: jurisdiction for judicial review of a board order is a creation of statute, and even if petitioner was correct that he had a statutory right to adequate counsel on review which has been denied because of appellate counsel’s late filing, he was not correct that the appropriate remedy was to excuse the jurisdictional requirement of a timely petition. View "Haynes v. Board of Parole" on Justia Law

The question this case presented for the Oregon Supreme Court’s review centered on fees, and whether the legislature intended to depart from the accepted practice of awarding a party entitled to recover attorney fees incurred in litigating the merits of a fee-generating claim additional fees incurred in determining the amount of the resulting fee award in condemnation actions. The trial court ruled that there was no departure, and awarded the property owner in this case the fees that she had incurred both in litigating the merits of the underlying condemnation action and in determining the amount of the fee award. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Finding no reversible error in the Court of Appeals’ decision, the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed. View "TriMet v. Aizawa" on Justia Law

The Portland City Code imposed a $35 tax on each resident of the city who is at least 18 years old, has income of $1,000 or more per year, and does not reside in a household that is at or below federal poverty guidelines. The funds generated by the tax are used to support public art and music education programs. Plaintiff George Wittemyer argued the “arts tax” was a violation of the Oregon Constitution’s prohibition on a “poll or head tax.” The Oregon Supreme Court concluded that a tax that takes into account the income, property, or other resources of taxpayers is not a “poll or head tax” within the meaning of Article IX, section 1a. In this case, the City of Portland arts tax exempted certain residents based on their income and household resources. Thus, the tax does take income into account and, as a result, did not amount to a “poll or head tax.” View "Wittemyer v. City of Portland" on Justia Law

If an individual has been released on both probation and post-prison supervision subject to the same or similar conditions, a single act may violate the conditions of both probation and post-prison supervision. Defendant Matthew Richards was sentenced on two different criminal offenses and was subject to both probation and post-prison supervision at the same time. A condition of both was that he not change addresses without permission. He did not comply with that condition. As a result, the official who supervised his post-prison supervision on one offense imposed a sanction of three days in jail. The trial court imposed an additional sanction of revoking his probation on the other offense and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment on that offense. The issue in this case was whether the trial court had authority to do so. The Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court does have such authority. The Oregon Supreme Court agreed and affirmed. View "Oregon v. Richards" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the Attorney General’s certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 2 (2018) (IP 2). IP 2, if enacted, would change the way that signatures were gathered to put an initiative measure or a referendum on the ballot. Currently, once the Secretary of State determines that an initiative or referendum petition meets certain minimum requirements, the chief petitioners or petition circulators must collect signatures from registered voters on signature sheets prepared in accordance with the Secretary of State’s rules. IP 2 would make two major changes to those requirements: (1) it would require the Secretary of State to adopt rules permitting registered voters to sign initiative and referendum petitions digitally; and (2) it would require the Secretary of State to create and administer a website where registered voters could sign petitions digitally. Petitioner challenged the caption, the "yes" vote result statement, and the summary. The Oregon Supreme Court determined changes were warranted to the ballot title, but not the "yes" vote result statement or the summary. The ballot title was referred back to the Attorney General for modification. View "Unger v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

The question in this case was whether K.A.M. was stopped during the search of a drug house when a detective came upon youth and a friend in one of the bedrooms, told K.A.M.'s friend to “stay off the meth,” asked them their names, and then asked whether they had anything illegal on them. Because the trial court ruled that no stop occurred, it denied K.A.M.'s motion to suppress evidence discovered during the encounter. The Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, agreeing that no stop had occurred. The Oregon Supreme Court concluded after a review of the trial court record, however, a stop occurred, it reversed the Court of Appeals decision and the trial court’s judgment. View "Oregon v. K. A. M." on Justia Law

Delta Logistics, Inc. was a "for-hire carrier" licensed by the federal government to transport goods interstate. Delta did not own any trucks; rather, it leased trucks from owner-operators, who operated, furnished, and maintained the trucks. The Oregon Employment Department assessed Delta unemployment insurance taxes on the funds that Delta paid the owner-operators, on grounds the owner-operators did not come within the exemption in ORS 657.047(1)(b) because the leases that the owner-operators entered into with Delta were not "leases" within the meaning of the statute: to come within the exemption, the owner must be the only person operating the truck. An administrative law judge (ALJ) agreed and issued a final order upholding the assessment. Delta appealed. The Court of Appeals was not persuaded by the Department's arguments and overturned the ALJ's decision, finding ORS 657.047(2) made clear that the exemption included owners who hire employees to help operate their trucks. Considering the text, context, and legislative history of ORS 657.047(1)(b), the Oregon Supreme Court did not agree with the department that Delta owed unemployment taxes on owner-operators who hired employees to help them operate the motor-vehicles they leased to Delta. The Court of Appeals was affirmed that the final of the ALJ was reversed. View "Delta Logistics, Inc. v. Employment Dept. Tax Section" on Justia Law