Justia Oregon Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff initiated this action against the Secretary of State, challenging the constitutionality of ORS 250.048(9), which provided that a person who registered with the Secretary of State to collect initiative petition signatures for pay may not, “at the same time, obtain signatures on a petition or prospective petition for which the person is not being paid.” At the time he initiated the action, plaintiff had registered to collect initiative petition signatures for pay and had been hired to do just that. At the same time, he wanted to collect signatures on other measures on a volunteer basis. He contended that ORS 250.048(9) violated his constitutional rights of freedom of expression and association. During the pendency of the litigation, however, plaintiff stopped working as a paid signature collector, and his registration expired. The secretary moved for summary judgment on the ground that the action had become moot. Plaintiff opposed the motion, submitting an affidavit stating that he intended to work as a paid signature collector in the future and that he might be interested in collecting signatures on a volunteer basis on other measures at the same time. He also argued that, even if his action had become moot, the action nevertheless should proceed because it was “likely to evade judicial review in the future,” and ORS 14.175 expressly authorized courts to adjudicate such cases. The trial court granted the secretary's motion to dismiss, and the Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal. The issues, therefore, before the Supreme Court were: (1) whether the averments in plaintiff’s affidavit were sufficient to establish that his action was not moot; (2) even if the action was moot, whether it was nevertheless justiciable under ORS 14.175 because it was likely to evade review; and (3) if it is subject to ORS 14.175, whether the legislature possessed the constitutional authority to enact it. The Court concluded: (1) plaintiff’s affidavit was insufficient to establish that his action was not moot; (2) the action nevertheless was likely to evade judicial review under the standard set out in ORS 14.175, because it was not necessary to request expedited consideration to meet its terms; and (3) the legislature did possess the constitutional authority to enact the statute. Accordingly, because the Court concluded that the case was justiciable under ORS 14.175, it reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and trial court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Couey v. Atkins" on Justia Law

At issue before the Supreme Court in this declaratory judgment action was whether a home-rule city could impose a five-percent franchise fee on a sanitary authority with overlapping jurisdiction. The trial court concluded that the city had authority to impose the fee, but declined to reach an additional question whether the amount of the fee was reasonable, because that issue was not presented by the pleadings. The Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the city had authority to enact the ordinance providing for the fee and that the sanitary authority’s argument about reasonableness was unpreserved. After its review, the Supreme Court found no reversible error in the Court of Appeals' judgment and also affirmed. View "Rogue Valley Sewer Services v. City of Phoenix" on Justia Law

An Oregon state trooper drove by a busy Portland intersection and noticed that, after he did so, defendant crossed the street against a “Don’t Walk” sign, a Class D violation under ORS 814.020(1) and (3). The trooper turned his car around and drove to a position near defendant, who was sitting on a bench at a bus stop. When defendant saw the trooper’s car approach, he got up and began to walk away. The trooper honked his horn and motioned to defendant to come and talk to him, which defendant did. The trooper knew that the intersection was in a high-crime area where a lot of recent gang activity had occurred. He observed that defendant was wearing an “oversized” or “puffy” jacket over a “hoodie sweatshirt,” “oversized baggy gray pants,” and “white tennis shoes,” and was carrying what could have been a green lanyard, garb that the trooper thought might indicate gang affiliation. Defendant replied that he had seen somebody else doing the same thing and “thought it was okay.” At that point, the trooper asked “do you have any weapons on you?” Defendant “kind of sighed and closed his eyes and said yes.” Defendant revealed that he was carrying a gun. Without being asked, defendant then separated his feet, leaned forward, separated his hands, and put his hands on the hood of the trooper’s car. The trooper frisked defendant, located the gun, and learned that defendant kept the gun for “protection” and that he was indeed a gang member. Defendant was taken to the police station where he was ultimately was charged with one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. Prior to trial, defendant filed a motion to suppress. The trial court denied the motion, and defendant was subsequently tried and convicted. Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the circuit court judgment. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the State did not claim that the trooper’s inquiry was independently justified by reasonable suspicion that defendant ran afoul of Oregon's firearms laws. Nor did the state argue that the trooper’s inquiry in this case was justified by officer-safety. Rather, the state took issue with the Court of Appeals’ preliminary conclusion that a weapons inquiry was an investigation of an unrelated matter: the state argued that “questions about the presence of weapons are reasonably related to the safe investigation of a traffic violation.” The Supreme Court concluded the state did not meet its burden to demonstrate that the officer’s weapons inquiry was reasonably related to his traffic investigation and reasonably necessary to effectuate it. The decision of the Court of Appeals was affirmed. The judgment of the circuit court was reversed, and the case remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Oregon v. Jinenez" on Justia Law

The Montara Owners Association (homeowners) sued developer and general contractor, La Noue Development, LLC for damages caused by design and construction defects in the building of the Montara townhomes. The defects included problems with the framing, siding, decking, and windows, resulting in water intrusion and water damage. La Noue, in turn, filed a third-party complaint against multiple subcontractors, including Vasily Sharabarin, dba Advanced Construction (Sharabarin), who provided siding work on four buildings. Before trial, La Noue settled with the homeowners for $5 million (eliminating the first-party litigation from the case) and also reached settlements with most of the third-party subcontractors. La Noue did not settle with Sharabarin. Because of various pretrial rulings, the only claims submitted to the jury were La Noue’s breach of contract claims against Sharabarin and two other subcontractors. Before trial, the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Sharabarin on La Noue’s claim for contractual indemnity, on the ground that the indemnification provision on which La Noue had relied was void under ORS 30.140. The trial court also held that the court would decide whether La Noue could recover the attorney fees that it had incurred in defending against the homeowners’ claims as consequential damages for Sharabarin’s breach of contract and that the court would resolve that issue after trial. In its post-trial ruling on the attorney fee issue, the court ultimately held that La Noue could not recover attorney fees as consequential damages in the case, even after trial, and denied La Noue’s claim for those attorney fees. The issues this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on: the proper application of ORS 30.140; whether it was error for the trial court to give an instruction on the economic waste doctrine in the absence of any evidence on the alternative measure of damages, diminution in value; and whether a third-party plaintiff can recover attorney fees as consequential damages for a third-party defendant’s breach of contract when the attorney fees were incurred in the first-party litigation in the same action. The Supreme Court concluded that it was error to have given the economic waste instruction. The Court affirmed on the Court of Appeals' decisions as to the other issues presented, and remanded for the trial court to consider the general contractor’s substantive right to attorney fees. View "Montara Owners Assn. v. La Noue Development, LLC" on Justia Law

During a traffic stop, a deputy sheriff placed defendant William Delong in custody and then asked him, without first advising him of his Miranda rights, “if there was anything we should be concerned about” in his car. Defendant “told [the deputy] ‘no,’ and that if we wanted to search the vehicle, we could.” On appeal, the State conceded that the deputy violated Article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution when he asked defendant that question without first advising him. However, the State argued that the physical evidence that the deputies later found in defendant’s car did not “derive from” the Miranda violation. The Court of Appeals reversed, reasoning that both defendant’s offer and the resulting evidence derived from the violation. The State appealed, and the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals: "[n]othing that defendant said in the first part of his response to [the deputy's] unwarned question impaired defendant’s ability to make an independent decision to invite the deputies to search his car if they wanted to do so. [. . .] defendant’s invitation to search his car attenuated the taint flowing from [the deputy's] unwarned question. The evidence that the deputy found in defendant’s car did not derive from the preceding Miranda violation." View "Oregon v. Delong" on Justia Law

Petitioner Jackson County (the county) sought reconsideration of the Oregon Supreme Court's opinion in "Eclectic Investment, LLC v. Patterson," (346 P3d 468 (2015)) in which the Court affirmed the Court of Appeals and trial court decisions denying the county’s common-law indemnity claim. The Court concluded that, “[i]n cases in which the Oregon comparative negligence statutes apply and in which jurors allocate fault -and thereby responsibility- for payment of damages between tortfeasors, and each tortfeasor’s liability is several only, a judicially created means of allocating fault and responsibility is not necessary or justified.” The Court allowed the request for reconsideration because the Court rested its conclusion on an analysis that the parties had not expressly identified. The county raised three points that it thought might affect the Court's analysis. The Supreme Court took the opportunity, in this opinion, to briefly address those points and explain why it adhered to its prior conclusion. View "Eclectic Investment, LLC v. Patterson" on Justia Law

A jury convicted petitioner Kyle Green of eighteen sex offenses involving nine victims, ages twelve through seventeen. After an unsuccessful direct appeal, petitioner sought post-conviction relief, alleging he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Specifically, petitioner alleged in his pleading that counsel performed inadequately by failing to request an instruction directing the jury to consider the evidence concerning each alleged victim separately and only as that evidence pertained to a specific charge or charges relating to that victim. The post-conviction court entered a judgment denying post-conviction relief. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that “there was no evident downside to requesting such an instruction; the upside, however, was plain: The jury would have been prohibited from concluding that petitioner had committed the charged acts based on a belief that he had a propensity to commit such acts.” The State petitioned for the Supreme Court's review of "recurring" issues of what a postconviction petitioner must show to establish inadequate performance of counsel and what a petitioner must prove to establish that counsel’s inadequate performance prejudiced the petitioner’s case. After review, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals. The Court concluded the post-conviction court applied the wrong legal standard for prejudice, so the Court reversed with regard to that issue. The judgment of the circuit court denying post-conviction relief was reversed and remanded with respect to petitioner’s instructional claim, and was otherwise affirmed. View "Green v. Franke" on Justia Law

The state charged defendant with identity theft for signing two documents with another person’s name. After a police officer stopped defendant for speeding, defendant identified himself as Sergio Molina, told the officer his date of birth, and explained that he used to live in Washington. Defendant, however, did not present a driver’s license or other type of identification to the officer. The officer called the dispatcher, who could not locate any person named Sergio Molina in either Oregon or Washington. The officer arrested defendant for failure to present a driver’s license and took defendant to the local police station. After checking the fingerprints on the card, AFIS notified the police department that defendant’s name was Emilio Medina. On further questioning, defendant admitted that the name and date of birth that he had given the officer were fake. After learning defendant’s real name, the officer also discovered that defendant was on probation. He contacted defendant’s probation officer, who explained that defendant might have given the officer a fictitious name because he was aware of a warrant for his arrest. At trial, defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal on the ground that no reasonable person could find that, in signing those documents, he had committed the crimes. Further, defendant argued that, if he had committed those acts, no reasonable person could find that he had done so with the requisite mental state. The trial court denied defendant’s motion, and convicted him of identity theft as well as three other charged offenses. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted defendant's petition for certiorari review, then reversed the Court of Appeals' and the trial court’s judgment as to defendant’s conviction for identity theft and remanded this case to the trial court concluding the trial court should have granted defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal because defendant did not utter the fingerprint card and property receipt nor did he convert those documents to his own use. View "Oregon v. Medina" on Justia Law

Petitioners were active and retired members of the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) who challenged two legislative amendments aimed at reducing the cost of retirement benefits: Senate Bill (SB) 822 (2013), and SB 861 (2013). Petitioners raised numerous challenges to the amendments but primarily argued that the amendments impaired their contractual rights and therefore violated the state Contract Clause, Article I, section 21, of the Oregon Constitution, and the federal Contract Clause, Article I, section 10, clause 1, of the United States Constitution. "Although there is no doubt that the legislature passed SB 822 and SB 861 to address legitimate public policy concerns and with an appropriate sensitivity to the impact that the amendments would have on retirees, those concerns do not establish a defense to the contractual impairment that the amendments effect. The public purpose defense that respondents ask [the Oregon Supreme Court] to recognize imposes a high bar to justify the state’s impairment of a state contract, like PERS, and the record in this case does not meet that standard. We therefore hold that respondents constitutionally may cease the income tax offset payments to nonresidents as set out in SB 822 and that respondents also constitutionally may apply the COLA amendments as set out in SB 822 and SB 861 prospectively to benefits earned on or after the effective dates of those laws, but not retrospectively to benefits earned before those effective dates." View "Moro v. Oregon" on Justia Law

Defendant Michael Lykins was convicted of the crime of tampering with a witness after he tried to persuade his girlfriend to testify falsely in his impending trial on charges of criminal trespass and criminal negligence. At defendant's sentencing hearing following the tampering conviction, the State asked the trial court to impose an upward departure sentence, based on the fact that defendant's girlfriend was a "vulnerable victim" under the administrative rule governing departure sentences. Defendant objected on the ground that the state, not the witness, is the victim of the crime of tampering with a witness and, therefore, that the departure factor did not apply. The trial court disagreed with defendant and imposed a 48-month durational departure sentence on the tampering conviction. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court, however, reversed and remanded. Because the word "victim" was not expressly defined for purposes of the departure rule, defendant urged the Court to interpret that word by reference to the substantive offense for which the defendant is being sentenced. For purposes of OAR 213-008-0002(1)(b)(B), which permits a trial court to enhance a defendant's sentence when the defendant "knew or had reason to know of the victim's particular vulnerability, * * * which increased the harm or threat of harm caused by the criminal conduct," the term "victim" had the same meaning as it has in the relevant statutory provision defining the offense for which the defendant is being sentenced. In this case, defendant was being sentenced for the offense of tampering with a witness in violation of ORS 162.285. The girlfriend was not a victim of that crime; it followed that the trial court erred in imposing a departure sentence for defendant's conviction of that offense based on OAR 213-008-0002(1)(b)(B). View "Oregon v. Lykins" on Justia Law