Justia Oregon Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Ben Unger, LaToya Fick and Carmen Rubio petitioned the Oregon Supreme Court for review of the Attorney General's certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 65. IP 65, if enacted, would establish a “High School Graduation and College and Career Readiness Fund” (Readiness Fund) within the state General Fund for the purposes of—as the title of the fund suggests-improving high school graduation rates and college and career readiness. The measure would require the legislature, beginning in 2017, to “appropriate, allocate or otherwise make available” to the fund not less than $800 per student per year. Thereafter, the measure would require that the amounts appropriated, allocated, or otherwise made available be increased in accordance with Executive Order No. 14-14. Petitioner Unger argued the certified ballot title is deficient in several respects pertaining to the “no” vote result statement and the summary. Petitioners Fick and Rubio also challenge the ballot title, arguing that the caption does not reasonably identify the subject of IP 65, that the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ vote result statements do not accurately identify the consequences of voting one way or the other, and that the summary is deficient in that it carries forward problems with the caption and the result statements. After review, the Supreme Court rejected petitioner Unger's contention without discussion, but agreed with petitioners Fick and Rubio's contentions, and referred the ballot title back to the Attorney General for modification. View "Unger v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

Gerald Rowlett and his two companies, Westlake Development Company, Inc., and Westlake Development Group, LLC (plaintiffs), filed an action for malpractice against the law firm Schwabe, Williamson, and Wyatt, PC, (Schwabe) and lawyers David Fagan and James Finn (collectively, defendants), alleging claims for negligence, negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, and claims related to attorney fees. Defendants had represented plaintiffs in an action against plaintiffs’ business partners in Sunrise Partners, LLC (Sunrise). Plaintiffs settled the Sunrise litigation in 2007, and, soon thereafter, initiated the malpractice action, alleging that they would have had a better outcome in the Sunrise litigation but for the mishandling of their case by defendants. A jury ultimately found that defendants were negligent in their representation of plaintiffs, but that defendants’ negligence did not cause plaintiffs any damage. The jury also reached a defense verdict on the breach of fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentation, and attorney fee claims. Plaintiffs appealed, asserting seven assignments of error. The Court of Appeals reversed as to two of those assignments of error and remanded the case for a new trial. The Supreme Court did not agree with the Court of Appeals' judgment with regard to the two alleged errors, reversed in part, affirmed in part and remanded for further proceedings. The Court of Appeals concluded that defendants’ closing argument to the jury improperly invoked the erroneous date on the verdict form to argue that the jury should use the settlement date as the date to “value” Rowlett’s interest in Sunrise and thus conclude that plaintiffs suffered no damages. In so ruling, the court may have misunderstood defendants’ theory of defense and their causation argument. On this ground, the Supreme Court reversed. View "Rowlett v. Fagan" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals certified two questions of Oregon law to the Oregon Supreme Court. This case arose when plaintiff, who was legally blind, was injured when she stepped into a hole while jogging in a public park in the City of Portland (the City). Plaintiff filed a complaint against the City and defendants Gibson and Stillson. Defendant Gibson had created the hole to fix a malfunctioning sprinkler head; he was a park technician with primary responsibility for maintenance of the park. Defendant Stillson was the maintenance supervisor for all westside parks in the City. As framed by the Ninth Circuit, the questions were: (1) whether individual employees responsible for repairing, maintaining, and operating improvements on City-owned recreational land made available to the public for recreational purposes are “owner[s]” of the land, as defined in the Oregon Public Use of Lands Act, and therefore immune from liability for their negligence; and (2) if such employees are “owner[s]” under the Act, whether the Act, as applied to them, violated the remedy clause of Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution. The Oregon Supreme Court concluded that the individual employees in this case did not qualify as “owner[s]” under the Act, and that the Court need not address the second certified question. View "Johnson v. Gibson" on Justia Law

Petitioner Cynthia Kendoll petitioned the Oregon Supreme Court for review of the Attorney General's certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 52. IP 52, if enacted, would supplement federal immigration law. Federal immigration law made it unlawful for "'a person or other entity * * * to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized alien.'" Congress established a website, E-Verify, that permitted employers to determine whether the documentation that the employer reviewed in completing Form I-9 was authentic or, matched records on file with the federal government. Generally, federal immigration laws did not require employers to use E-Verify. Using E-Verify established a rebuttable presumption that an employer did not violate federal immigration laws even if it later turned out that the employer in fact hired an unauthorized alien. IP 52 would add a state licensing requirement that employers use E-Verify to determine their employees’ eligibility to work. Petitioner challenged the ballot title’s caption, the "yes" and "no" result statements, and the summary. After review, the Supreme Court agreed with petitioner that the caption failed to substantially comply with ORS 250.035(2)(a). The ballot title was referred back to the Attorney General for modification. View "Kendoll v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

Defendant Kade William Kirschner and his co-defendant broke into the victim’s home and, after the victim confronted them, fled. Defendant was apprehended shortly thereafter, and the police found defendant in possession of drugs and a concealed weapon. Defendant was charged with various crimes, including burglary, trespass, criminal mischief and carrying a concealed weapon, as well as several drug offenses. The victim was subpoenaed for trial, but, shortly before the trial was scheduled to occur, defendant entered into a plea agreement under which he pleaded guilty to two drug possession charges and the charge of carrying a concealed weapon; the state dismissed the other charges. Defendant also agreed to pay the victim restitution in an amount to be determined by the court. Defendant challenged the imposition of restitution for wages that the victim lost when the victim was subpoenaed to testify at defendant’s criminal trial and restitution hearing. In a per curiam decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed the restitution award. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Oregon v. Kirschner" on Justia Law

After defendant Ema Ramos set fire to her restaurant and filed a fraudulent claim with her insurance company for damage to restaurant equipment, she was convicted of second-degree arson and attempted first-degree aggravated theft. The trial court ordered defendant to pay restitution and included in its restitution award to one of the victims, defendant’s insurer, fees that the victim had paid to attorneys and investigators for their time spent in investigating defendant’s claim for benefits and in providing grand jury and trial testimony. Defendant challenged that award on appeal, claiming that it was improper to include those investigation and witness fees in the award. The Court of Appeals affirmed the restitution award, and finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed too. View "Oregon v. Ramos" on Justia Law

In July 2010, defendant Roman Suppah was driving his girlfriend’s car. Deputy Sheriff Hulke stopped defendant for a traffic violation. After being stopped, defendant “told [the deputy that] his name was Harold Pennington, born in 7/21/64.” Defendant said that he lived in Warm Springs but that he did not “have a physical address or a mailing address.” The deputy contacted the dispatcher to check the name and date of birth that defendant had given him. The dispatcher told him that “Pennington was driving while suspended,” and defendant did not offer any proof of insurance. The deputy cited defendant (as Pennington) for driving while suspended and driving without insurance. The deputy did not cite defendant for the traffic violation that had led him to stop defendant in the first place, nor did he make a written record of the reason why he had stopped defendant. As the deputy later explained, the traffic violation that had led him to stop defendant was one for which he normally gives drivers a warning but no citation. The state charged defendant with giving false information to a deputy sheriff. Later, at a hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress, the deputy could not remember the specific traffic violation that had led him to stop defendant. The trial court found that the state’s inability to establish the reason for the stop rendered it unlawful, but it denied defendant’s motion to suppress the statements that defendant had made following the stop. Focusing on defendant’s reasons for giving the deputy false information, the trial court found that defendant’s decision to do so was independent of the illegality. The en banc Court of Appeals reversed. The Oregon Supreme Court allowed the state’s petition for review and reversed the Court of Appeals decision. "[F]rom a temporal perspective, the illegality did not become apparent until months later at the suppression hearing when the officer could not remember which traffic violation had led him to stop defendant. The trial court correctly concluded that the stop had no appreciable effect on defendant’s decision to give the deputy a false name and date of birth. Because that decision attenuated the taint of the unlawful stop, the trial court correctly denied defendant’s motion to suppress his statements." View "Oregon v. Suppah" on Justia Law

Defendant was a general contractor that builds “spec” houses (houses built without pre-existing construction contracts in anticipation of eventual sale to the public). On May 30, 2000, defendant and plaintiff entered into a purchase and sale agreement for a house. Although most of the construction had been completed, the agreement specified that defendant would make changes to the interior of the house. Specifically, defendant agreed to upgrade some of the flooring, install an air conditioning unit, and install a gas dryer in the laundry room. After defendant made those changes and the parties conducted a walk-through inspection, the sale closed on July 12, 2000. The primary question in this construction defect case was which of two statutes of repose applied when a buyer enters into a purchase and sale agreement to buy an existing home. Although each statute provided for a 10-year period of repose, the two periods of repose ran from different dates. One runs from “the date of the act or omission complained of;” the other ran from the date that construction is “substantial[ly] complet[e].” In this case, the trial court found that plaintiff filed her action more than 10 years after “the date of the act or omission complained of” but less than 10 years after the construction was “substantial[ly] complet[e].” The trial court ruled that the first statute, ORS 12.115(1), applied and accordingly entered judgment in defendant’s favor. The Court of Appeals affirmed. After review of the parties' arguments on appeal, the Supreme Court found no reversible error in the Court of Appeals' decision and affirmed. View "Shell v. Schollander Companies, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant Alen Simonov and his brother, Vadim, talked to their neighbor about purchasing a 1983 Datsun pickup truck. The neighbor testified that she agreed to allow the brothers to take the truck to a car wash to check for an oil leak. The neighbor watched the brothers drive away. Because the brothers failed to return the truck when she expected them to, the neighbor reported the truck stolen. Defendant later left a voicemail message stating, “I’m in Portland. We’re bringing the truck back.” The neighbor saw Vadim pull the truck into her driveway several hours later, with defendant in the passenger seat. Defendant appealed his conviction for unauthorized use of a vehicle (UUV), a felony offense committed when a person “takes, operates, exercises control over, rides in or otherwise uses another’s vehicle * * * without consent of the owner.” At trial, defendant requested an instruction that, to reach a guilty verdict, the jury must find that he knew that the use of the vehicle was without the owner’s consent; instead, the trial court instructed the jury that it could convict defendant if it found that he was criminally negligent with regard to whether the owner had consented. The Court of Appeals reversed defendant’s conviction on the ground that the charged offense required that the person riding in the vehicle knew that the vehicle was being used without the owner’s consent, the trial court therefore improperly instructed the jury, and the error was reversible. After review of this case, the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals, reversed the judgment convicting defendant, and remanded the case back to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Oregon v. Simonov" on Justia Law

As part of a highway improvement project, plaintiff Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT or the state), brought a condemnation action against defendant Alderwoods (Oregon), Inc., seeking to acquire "[a]ll abutter’s rights of access, if any," between defendant’s property and Highway 99W. The improvement project involved rebuilding the sidewalk along Highway 99W and eliminating two driveways that previously had allowed direct vehicular access from defendant’s property to the highway. Defendant’s property retained access to the highway, however, by means of two driveways onto a city street that ran perpendicular to and intersected the highway. Before trial, the state moved in limine to exclude as irrelevant evidence of any diminution in value of defendant’s property as a result of the loss of the two driveways. The trial court concluded that the elimination of those driveways had not effected a taking of defendant’s right of access to the highway and granted the state’s motion. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court that there was no taking in this case, and affirmed. View "ODOT v. Alderwoods" on Justia Law