Susan M. Leeson

This case was a wrongful death action in which the plaintiff, as personal representative of the deceased, sued a trucking company after a fatal accident involving its employee’s tractor-trailer. After the jury deadlocked on fault allocation, the trial court gave a supplemental verdict-urging instruction encouraging further deliberation without coercion. The Court of Appeals reversed the resulting verdict, holding the instruction coercive, but the Oregon Supreme Court reversed that decision. The court held that a rule previously announced in a criminal case—requiring verdict-urging instructions to meet certain standards to avoid coercion—extends to civil cases, but applies only prospectively, so the trial court’s instruction did not require reversal here. The case was remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.

torts & liabilityprocedure

In this criminal case, defendant Chavez, a foreign national, was arrested and read his Miranda rights in Spanish; he requested an attorney but later made incriminating statements that he sought to suppress under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), which requires authorities to inform arrestees of their right to contact their consulate. The trial court denied the motion to suppress after finding the statements voluntary and no prejudice from the lack of consular notification, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. On review, the Oregon Supreme Court held that the defendant failed to preserve his VCCR argument because his lawyer expressly told the trial court that resolving the Miranda claim would dispose of the VCCR issue and did not assert that the treaty created independent individual rights. The court therefore declined to address the merits of whether the VCCR grants personal rights or whether suppression is an appropriate remedy, and it affirmed the judgment.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved homeowners who sued the City of Lake Oswego after a city storm drain caused erosion that led to a landslide damaging their property, alleging claims for inverse condemnation (a taking for public use) and negligence. A jury found for the plaintiffs, but the Court of Appeals reversed on grounds of discretionary immunity for the city's decisions about storm drain maintenance. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded, holding that discretionary immunity did not apply because the city had not made any affirmative policy decision or considered the erosion issue in its capital improvement plans; instead, it followed a complaint-driven repair policy without addressing this location. The court emphasized that the evidence supported the jury's findings on both claims when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.

propertytorts & liability

The case concerned the interpretation of the phrase 'each unit of property in this state' in Ballot Measure 50, which amended the Oregon Constitution to establish maximum assessed values for property tax purposes based on 1995 real market values reduced by 10 percent, with annual caps on increases. Taxpayer Flavorland Foods argued that land and improvements on its commercial parcel must be treated as separate units for calculating maximum assessed values, while the Washington County Assessor maintained that the unit encompasses the entire property tax account. The Oregon Tax Court granted summary judgment to the taxpayer, but the reviewing court reversed, holding that the phrase refers to all property within a single tax account. The court reasoned that although the text is ambiguous, the context of the existing property tax system, the measure's history replacing Measure 47, and voter intent establish that the account as a whole—including both land and improvements—is the relevant unit for applying the maximum assessed value cap.

taxesproperty

This case is an automatic direct review by the Oregon Supreme Court of a conviction and death sentence for aggravated murder, murder by abuse, sexual penetration, and abuse of a corpse. The defendant was convicted after evidence showed he repeatedly beat, burned, restrained, and otherwise abused a two-and-a-half-year-old child over several months until she died in June 1997, then buried the body. The court affirmed the convictions and death sentence, holding that the evidence supported the jury's findings, that challenged jury-eligibility rules under SB 936 did not violate the Sixth Amendment or Article I, section 11, impartial-jury guarantees, and that the underlying murder statutes were not unconstitutionally vague as to the required mental state.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

This case is a ballot title review under ORS 250.085(2) in which petitioner Lon T. Mabon challenged the Attorney General's certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 34 (2002), a proposed constitutional amendment that would add language to Article I, section 1, declaring that God establishes human personhood at fertilization and requiring protection of all innocent human life from that point until natural death. The Oregon Supreme Court held that the caption failed to comply substantially with ORS 250.035(2)(a) because it listed prohibited conduct rather than reasonably identifying the measure's subject matter as stated in the proposal's text. The court referred the ballot title to the Attorney General for modification of the caption while leaving the "yes" and "no" vote result statements and summary unchanged, as no challenge was raised to those segments.

abortionelectionsreligious liberty

This case concerns whether the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) could accept a late-filed application to renew a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the federal Clean Water Act, allowing Columbia Plywood to continue discharging pollutants into the Klamath River after the original permit's expiration. Environmental groups sued in federal court, arguing that the 180-day filing deadline in state rules was mandatory, that DEQ lacked authority to waive it, and that the company's discharges had been unauthorized since 1989. The Oregon Supreme Court, responding to certified questions from the Ninth Circuit, concluded that DEQ had authority to accept and process the renewal application because the rule's text and structure prioritize application completeness over strict adherence to the filing deadline, which appears intended to aid agency processing rather than to impose an inflexible constraint.

environmentprocedure

In this criminal case, defendant moved to suppress evidence from a traffic stop that led to his indictment for felony driving while revoked, arguing the stop was invalid because the trooper who executed it lacked subjective probable cause for a traffic infraction. The trial court granted the motion on the ground that the requesting officer had not communicated the basis for the stop (darkly tinted windows providing probable cause under ORS 815.220), and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed, holding that the stop was lawful under the collective knowledge doctrine because the requesting officer possessed probable cause, even without communicating it to the trooper who made the stop. The court remanded for further proceedings.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a workers' compensation claim by an injured employee seeking permanent total disability (PTD) benefits after jaw injuries sustained at work, where the Department of Consumer and Business Services awarded only permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits and the Workers' Compensation Board upheld that determination. Claimant challenged the post-1995 statutory process under ORS 656.283(7), which barred introduction of new evidence at the hearing before an administrative law judge and limited review to issues raised during reconsideration. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and the Board, holding that the amended process facially violates the Due Process Clause because it denies claimants a meaningful opportunity to present evidence on essential elements of a PTD claim, such as willingness to work and reasonable efforts to obtain employment, which are not addressed at the reconsideration stage. The matter was remanded for further proceedings consistent with constitutional requirements.

labor & employmentprocedurecivil rights

This case arose from a tort action in which the plaintiff sued her ex-husband's former attorney for intentional infliction of emotional distress and misrepresentation, alleging the attorney misled a court during a custody hearing that resulted in the loss of her child. The trial court ordered the attorney to produce his files for in camera review to assess whether the crime-fraud exception overcame the attorney-client privilege, after finding the ex-husband's later flight from the jurisdiction and other circumstances might support the exception. The attorney sought mandamus relief, arguing the files remained privileged. The appellate court held that the plaintiff had not presented sufficient evidence to create a reasonable belief that in camera review would reveal evidence supporting the crime-fraud exception, as the ex-husband's retention of counsel occurred well before any proven intent to flee and the plaintiff's suspicions were insufficient. Accordingly, the court issued a peremptory writ directing the trial court to vacate its discovery order.

family lawtorts & liabilityprocedurecriminal law

This case concerned a breach of contract claim brought by the estate of a decedent against his former spouse, alleging that she violated implied duties of good faith and notification under a stipulated dissolution judgment by selling the marital home without informing him and then collecting life insurance proceeds. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendant, ruling that a stipulated judgment is not a contract supporting such claims. The Court of Appeals reversed, but the Oregon Supreme Court reinstated the trial court's decision, holding that the terms of the stipulated judgment merged into the judgment itself and could be enforced only through judgment remedies, not contract actions, unless the parties had created a separate surviving agreement.

family lawproperty

This case concerned whether a homeowner's insurance policy issued by USAA covered damage to rental property caused by the operation of an illegal methamphetamine laboratory, specifically challenging a policy title that restricted coverage under ORS 742.246(2). In its initial decision, the Oregon Supreme Court held that the policy's title "PERILS INSURED AGAINST" violated the statute's requirement for sufficiently explanatory titles printed in at least eight-point capital letters, entitling the plaintiff to coverage. On reconsideration, the court modified its prior ruling by remanding the case to the Court of Appeals to address four unresolved assignments of error regarding the policy's pollution exclusion clause and related issues. The court reaffirmed its statutory interpretation, rejecting arguments that the Director's approval of the policy form superseded the statute or that the title requirements applied only to standard fire insurance policies rather than multi-peril policies, emphasizing that ORS 742.204 exempts multi-peril policies only from certain other provisions and that the legislature intended the title rules to protect consumers even in complex policies.

business & regulatorypropertyprocedure

The case involved a dispute between Smurfit Newsprint Corp. and the Oregon Department of Revenue over the use of pollution control facility tax credits earned in 1986, 1987, and 1988, specifically whether the department could recalculate the taxpayer's credit usage in a tax year closed to assessment to adjust carryforward amounts for open years. The Oregon Tax Court had ruled in favor of the department's authority to make such recalculations, but the appellate court reversed that decision. The court reasoned that ORS 315.304 grants the taxpayer, not the department, the discretion to determine how much of the credit to use in a given year and how much to carry forward, and found no statutory or federal law basis for the department's position.

taxesbusiness & regulatory

This case involved petitioners challenging the Attorney General's certified ballot title for a proposed Oregon initiative measure that would amend the Forest Practices Act to require 'sustainable forestry' practices, including limits on tree cutting, restrictions on herbicides and pesticides, and new harvesting rules defined in the measure. The court reviewed whether the ballot title substantially complied with statutory requirements under ORS 250.035(2). It decided to modify the caption, 'yes' result statement, and summary to clarify that the measure defines 'Sustainable Forest Practices' and to ensure accuracy and parallelism, then certified the revised ballot title to the Secretary of State. The core reasoning was that the original caption was misleading by not informing voters of the measure's specific definitions of key terms, and modifications were needed to identify the primary subject matter while staying within word limits.

electionsenvironment

The case involved a dispute over insurance coverage for damage to a rental dwelling caused by chemical contamination from tenants operating an illegal methamphetamine laboratory. The insurer denied the claim under a pollution exclusion in the policy, but a jury found for the policyholder. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the exclusion unambiguously barred coverage. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed that decision, ruling that the exclusion appeared under the heading "PERILS INSURED AGAINST" in violation of ORS 742.246(2), which requires exclusions to be identified under an appropriate title; as a remedy, the court construed the policy as if the exclusion did not exist, thereby granting coverage.

propertybusiness & regulatory

This case involved a Jefferson County Commissioner who sued the Oregon Public Employees Union for intentional interference with economic relations, seeking a preliminary injunction against union picketing at his business during a strike related to collective bargaining negotiations. The trial court issued the injunction after finding a violation of the unfair labor practice statute, ORS 243.672(2)(g). The Oregon Supreme Court held that the Employment Relations Board has exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether an unfair labor practice occurred under ORS 243.676, and therefore the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter the injunction. The court vacated the injunction and remanded the case, reasoning that the plaintiff's tort claim was based on an alleged statutory violation within ERB's exclusive purview.

labor & employmentproceduretorts & liability

The case was a contract dispute in which an attorney sued clients on promissory notes for unpaid legal fees after representing their construction company, and the clients defended by claiming estoppel, undue influence, and rescission. The trial court entered judgment for the defendants as the prevailing party and awarded them attorney fees under the notes and ORS 20.096(1). The Court of Appeals reversed the fee award on the ground that a rescission defense barred recovery of fees under the contract. The Supreme Court reversed in part, holding that the judgment did not actually rescind the contract, so the prevailing-party fee statute applied, and remanded for further review of the fee calculation.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves challenges to the ballot title for a proposed Oregon initiative measure that would repeal mandatory minimum sentences imposed by Ballot Measure 11 and require resentencing under prior guidelines. Petitioners Lawler and Doell sought review of the Attorney General's certified ballot title, arguing issues with the caption, result statements, and summary. The court determined that the caption and result statements substantially comply with statutory requirements, but the summary is insufficient because it misleadingly suggests only the possibility of shorter sentences upon resentencing, whereas identical or longer sentences are also possible. The court modified the summary by removing that phrase and certified the revised ballot title.

criminal lawelections

This case is a legal malpractice action in which plaintiff sued his former attorney for allegedly failing to properly limit plaintiff's environmental cleanup liability in an indemnity agreement during the sale of plaintiff's oil company. The trial court granted defendant's motion for a directed verdict on the ground that plaintiff had not presented expert testimony to establish the applicable standard of care. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that expert testimony was unnecessary. The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the trial court, reasoning that expert testimony is generally required in legal malpractice cases to prove negligence unless the lawyer's breach is obvious to a lay jury, and that the facts here did not fall within that exception.

proceduretorts & liabilitybusiness & regulatory

In Rodriguez v. The Holland, Inc., a child plaintiff sued the playground owner for negligence after sustaining a broken arm on play equipment, initially pleading damages over $4,000 but later amending the complaint to $4,000 with court approval under ORCP 23 A; the defendant denied liability and opposed attorney fees under ORS 20.080. The arbitrator awarded damages and fees to the plaintiff, but the trial court and Court of Appeals vacated the fee award based on prior precedent interpreting the statutory limit by reference to the original complaint. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed, ruling that the phrase 'amount pleaded' in ORS 20.080 refers to the operative amended complaint, which superseded the original under the civil procedure rules, thereby entitling the prevailing plaintiff to reasonable attorney fees if the demand was timely made.

torts & liabilityprocedure