Garcia v. DMV

• Decision Date: 13 October 2004
• Citation: 195 Or. App. 604,99 P.3d 316
• Parties: Michael GARCIA, Appellant, v. OREGON DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES, Chloe Ousterhout, Billie Brown, and Lorna Youngs, Respondents.
• Court: Oregon Court of Appeals

99 P.3d 316
195 Or. App. 604

Michael GARCIA, Appellant,
v.
OREGON DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES, Chloe Ousterhout, Billie Brown, and Lorna Youngs, Respondents

0310007; A124357.

Court of Appeals of Oregon.

Dated May 28, 2004.

September 22, 2004.

Decided October 13, 2004.

99 P.3d 317

Kent Hickam, Albany, for appellant

Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General, and Richard D. Wasserman, Attorney-in-Charge, for respondents.

Before DEITS, Chief Judge, and EDMONDS, LANDAU, HASELTON, ARMSTRONG, LINDER, WOLLHEIM, BREWER, SCHUMAN, and ORTEGA, Judges.

On Court's Request for Information Dated May 28, 2004.

Regarding Appealability; Taken En Banc September 22, 2004.

LINDER, J.

This appeal presents what promises to be the first of many questions that will arise for courts in the wake of the enactment of House Bill (HB) 2646 (2003), which comprehensively revised the statutes governing judgments.¹ Under HB 2646, many judgments are now designated "limited," "general," or "supplemental," and trial judges and local court administrators are required to include those designations in judgment labels and in register notations.² For the most part, the legislature appears not to have anticipated that the new statutory scheme would be implemented imperfectly — for example, that the labels on judgments might not reflect the new designations or might reflect them incorrectly and that register notations might be incomplete or wrong. Consequently, we are presented with the issue that arises in this case.

What happened here is undramatic. The trial judge, after resolving all of the claims in this case, signed and filed a judgment document labeled "general judgment." The judgment document also awarded $385 in costs to the prevailing party. After receiving it, the court administrator noted in the court register that a judgment document had been filed. In making that notation, however, the court administrator made a mistake. Rather than describe the judgment as a general judgment, the court administrator described it as a limited judgment.³ The

99 P.3d 318

question under HB 2646 is the following: Does that clerical error defeat our jurisdiction over the appeal?⁴ The answer requires untangling the new statutory scheme governing judgments and attempting to discern the legislature's intent on a question that it did not address expressly

The starting point, as for all questions that require us to determine legislative intent, is the text and context of the pertinent statutes. PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or. 606, 610-11, 859 P.2d 1143 (1993). Context, in turn, includes "the preexisting common law and the statutory framework within which the law was enacted." Denton and Denton, 326 Or. 236, 241, 951 P.2d 693 (1998) (citation omitted). Because significant features of the preexisting statutory framework relating to judgments were retained in HB 2646, that framework provides an appropriate starting point.

Under the preexisting law, for a judgment to be enforceable and appealable, two basic requirements of form had to be satisfied: (1)the judgment decision had to be set forth in a written document, and (2) the written document had to be labeled a "judgment." Former ORCP 70 (2001), repealed by Or. Laws 2003, ch. 576, § 580 (ORCP 70 A provided that "[e]very judgment shall be in writing plainly titled as a judgment and set forth in a separate document."). An oral pronouncement of the court's decision, even if transcribed, was not an enforceable and appealable judgment because it was not reduced to a written document. Kay v. David Douglas Sch. Dist. No. 40, 303 Or. 574, 579, 738 P.2d 1389 (1987). Even when the judgment was memorialized in a written document, the written document was not an appealable and enforceable judgment if it was not plainly labeled a "judgment." City of Portland v. Carriage Inn, 296 Or. 191, 194, 673 P.2d 531 (1983) (judgment must be labeled "judgment" to be effective). Of significance here, as long as the document was labeled a "judgment," the "plainly labeled" requirement was satisfied, even if the label otherwise included information that was inaccurate or meaningless. See Ensley v. Fitzwater, 293 Or. 158, 162 n. 2, 645 P.2d 1062 (1982) (because "judgment" and "order" are different things with separate meanings, label "judgment order" should not be used, but defect did not prevent appeal of judgment); Haas v. Painter, 62 Or.App. 719, 721 n. 1, 662 P.2d 768, rev. den., 295 Or. 297, 668 P.2d 381 (1983) (judgment labeled "judgment order," although meaningless, did not prevent judgment document from being appealable).

Preexisting law also imposed a procedural requirement for a judgment to be appealable and enforceable. Specifically, the judgment had to be entered in the register. See former ORCP 70 B(2) ("[A] judgment is effective only when entered in the register as provided in this rule.").⁵ But what constituted "entry" was not spelled out in the statute.

99 P.3d 319

Former ORCP 70 B(1) stated only that, after a judgment was filed with the court administrator, "notation of the filing shall be entered in the register," leaving the substance of the notation unspecified. This court construed the statute, however, to require that the notation specifically identify the document filed as "a judgment" rather than as an order or other kind of document. Patrick v. Otteman, 158 Or.App. 175, 185-86, 974 P.2d 217, rev. den., 328 Or. 594, 987 P.2d 514 (1999)

In enacting the 2003 statutory scheme governing judgments, the legislature retained those requirements, codifying them in terms that mirror the preexisting law closely, if not exactly. ORS 18.005(10) defines "judgment document" to mean "a writing in the form provided by ORS 18.038 that incorporates a court's judgment." ORS 18.038(1) expressly requires the written judgment document to have the word "judgment" in its title: "A judgment document must be plainly titled as a judgment." Under ORS 18.082(1)(b) and (c), "entry" remains the procedural event necessary for a judgment document to be enforceable and appealable. And, codifying this court's holding in Patrick, ORS 18.075(1) expressly identifies the substance of the notation necessary to enter a judgment in the register:

"A judgment is entered in circuit court when a court administrator notes in the register that a judgment document has been filed with the court administrator."

(Emphasis added.)

In short, under the preexisting statutory scheme, to be enforceable and appealable, a judgment had to be in writing, plainly labeled as a "judgment," and entered in the register with a notation that a "judgment" had been filed. Under the new statutory scheme, to be enforceable and appealable, a judgment has to be in writing, plainly labeled as a "judgment," and entered in the register with a notation that a "judgment" has been filed.

If the legislature had done nothing more, other than change, reorganize, or clarify other aspects of the preexisting scheme, the appealability of this judgment would not be in question. It would be a simple matter to presume, as we usually do, that the legislature was aware of former requirements and to conclude that, by keeping them, the legislature intended no change. See, e.g., U.S. National Bank v. Heggemeier, 106 Or.App. 693, 699, 810 P.2d 396 (1991) (given legislature's presumed knowledge of earlier enactments and case law, and its failure to expressly change the law, court assumed that legislature intended not to change the law).

But drawing that conclusion here is not such a simple matter. With the new statutory scheme, the legislature parted company with past practice by devising a more formal and seemingly intricate scheme of judgment subcategories or "types." Judgments in many cases now fall into one of three types: limited, general, or supplemental. Those designations distinguish judgments based on, among other things, their timing and their legal effect on the rights and interests of the parties. For example, a limited judgment is rendered before a general judgment and "disposes of at least one but fewer than all claims in the action." ORS 18.005(13). A general judgment, in contrast, "decides all claims in the action" except those previously decided by a limited judgment or those that may be later decided by a supplement judgment. ORS 18.005(8). And a supplemental judgment is rendered after a general judgment, as authorized by law, and affects a substantial right of a party. ORS 18.005(15).

As a complement to those new categorizations, the statutory scheme also imposes newly created duties on court administrators and trial judges pertaining to the form of judgments and register notations regarding judgment documents. Specifically, in those cases in which a judgment must be either limited, general, or supplemental, the title of the judgment document "must indicate" which it is, ORS 18.038(2); the judge must "ensure" that the title so indicates, ORS 18.052(1); if the title does not so indicate, the court administrator must return the judgment document to the judge without noting its filing in the register, ORS 18.058(2); and, if the title properly indicates the judgment type, the court administrator must note in the register whether the judgment is limited, general, or supplemental, ORS 18.075(2)(b).

99 P.3d 320

The existence of those new requirements and duties, and the legislative history emphasizing their importance, leads the dissent to conclude:

"[T]he legislative history confirms that the legislature created subcategories of judgments, each of which has particular legal consequences. The legislature also expanded the labeling requirement under preexisting law to require that, generally, the judgment document be properly labeled so that those who need information about the judgment will be clearly informed of its nature. Further, the legislature intended that the labeling of a judgment document be a significant procedural

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