Title: Klutschkowski v. PeaceHealth

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Filed:  September 26, 2013 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON 
 
BOBBI KLUTSCHKOWSKI 
and KEVIN KLUTSCHKOWSKI, 
personally and as guardians ad litem 
for BRAEDON KLUTSCHKOWSKI, 
a minor child,  
Petitioners on Review, 
Cross-Respondents on Review, 
 
v. 
 
PEACEHEALTH; 
AMY MCCARTHY; 
CENTER FOR WOMEN'S HEALTH, P.C.; 
ZENA I. MONJI; and ZENA I. MONJI, M.D., P.C., 
Defendants, 
 
 
and 
 
OREGON MEDICAL GROUP, P.C., 
 
Respondent on Review, 
Cross-Petitioner on Review. 
 
(CC 160615518; CA A138722; SC S059869) 
 
 
En Banc 
 
 
On review from the Court of Appeals.* 
 
 
Argued and submitted September 17, 2012; resubmitted January 7, 2013. 
 
 
Kathryn H. Clarke, Portland, argued the cause and filed the brief for petitioners on 
review/cross-respondents on review.  With her on the brief were Richard M. Rogers and 
Patrick L. Block, Portland. 
 
 
Matthew J. Kalmanson and Janet M. Schroer, Hart Wagner LLP, Portland, argued 
the cause and filed the briefs for respondent on review/cross-petitioner on review.  With 
them on the briefs was Marjorie A. Speirs. 
 
 
W. Eugene Hallman, Pendleton, filed the brief for amicus curiae Oregon Trial 
Lawyers Association. 
 
 
KISTLER, J. 
 
 
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed in part and affirmed in part.  The 
judgment of the circuit court is affirmed. 
 
 
Landau, J., concurred and filed an opinion. 
 
 
*Appeal from Lane County Circuit Court, Karsten H. Rasmussen, Judge. 245 Or 
App 524, 263 P3d 1130 (2011). 
 
1 
 
 
KISTLER, J.  
1 
 
 
Plaintiffs brought this medical malpractice action to recover for injuries that 
2 
their son sustained during delivery.  On review, the issues are whether ORCP 59 H limits 
3 
an appellate court's ability to review objections to a trial court's instructional rulings and 
4 
whether a statutory cap on noneconomic damages constitutionally can be applied to 
5 
actions brought by children injured during birth.  The Court of Appeals held that, because 
6 
defendant had not excepted to the trial court's rulings as ORCP 59 H requires, it could not 
7 
seek appellate review of those rulings.  Klutschkowski v. PeaceHealth, 245 Or App 524, 
8 
543-44, 263 P3d 1130 (2011).  The Court of Appeals also explained that, because the 
9 
common law did not recognize a cause of action in 1857 for injuries a child sustained 
10 
during birth, Article I, sections 10 and 17, of the Oregon Constitution do not limit the 
11 
legislature's authority to cap the damages resulting from those injuries; the Court of 
12 
Appeals accordingly held that the trial court should have applied a statutory cap to the 
13 
jury's award of noneconomic damages.  Id. at 548-49.  We allowed the parties' cross-
14 
petitions for review and now reverse the Court of Appeals decision to the extent that it 
15 
reduced the jury's award of noneconomic damages. 
16 
I 
17 
 
 
We set out the facts consistently with the jury's verdict.  See Mead v. 
18 
Legacy Health Sys., 352 Or 267, 269 n 2, 283 P3d 904 (2012); Delaney v. Taco Time 
19 
Int'l, 297 Or 10, 12, 681 P2d 114 (1984).  Mother and father have four children.  When 
20 
mother gave birth to her fourth child Braedon, he sustained an injury to the nerves that 
21 
control the use of his arm.  That injury is more likely to occur when a condition known as 
22 
2 
a shoulder dystocia has occurred during a previous delivery and when the child's fetal 
1 
size exceeds a certain weight. 
2 
 
 
A shoulder dystocia occurs when an infant's shoulder becomes stuck behind 
3 
the mother's pubic bone as the infant travels down the birth canal.  When a shoulder 
4 
dystocia occurs, the delivering physician customarily uses one of two maneuvers (the 
5 
McRoberts maneuver or the Woods corkscrew maneuver) to free the infant's shoulder 
6 
and complete the delivery.1  Those maneuvers and the traction resulting from the 
7 
shoulder dystocia can stretch and sometimes injure the infant's brachial plexus, a network 
8 
of nerves that run from the area of the spine around the infant's neck and control the 
9 
movement of the infant's arm.  Once a shoulder dystocia has occurred during a delivery, 
10 
the risk of a brachial plexus injury in a subsequent delivery increases; it is ten times more 
11 
likely that another shoulder dystocia will occur during a subsequent delivery. 
12 
 
 
The second factor that increases the risk of a brachial plexus injury is the 
13 
infant's fetal size.  An infant whose fetal size exceeds 3500 to 4000 grams is more likely 
14 
to sustain a brachial plexus injury during birth because of the increased traction that a 
15 
relatively large infant experiences as he or she travels through the birth canal.  The expert 
16 
medical testimony in this case permitted the jury to find that, when those two risk factors 
17 
are present, the standard of care requires an obstetrician to inform an expectant mother of 
18 
the risk of a brachial plexus injury if she delivers the child vaginally and to discuss the 
19 
                                              
 
1  
The McRoberts maneuver is performed by flexing the mother's legs to 
facilitate release of the infant's shoulder.  The Woods corkscrew maneuver requires the 
doctor to rotate the infant 180 degrees while the infant is within the birth canal. 
3 
option of proceeding with a caesarian delivery, commonly known as a C-section. 
1 
 
 
In 1999, mother gave birth to her third child Anna.  When Anna was born, 
2 
she weighed 4135 grams, and her delivery was complicated by a shoulder dystocia.  
3 
Dr. Powell, the obstetrician who delivered Anna, worked for defendant Oregon Medical 
4 
Group (defendant or the Medical Group).  Powell diagnosed the shoulder dystocia but did 
5 
not mention it to mother.  In the hospital chart, he documented that "[t]here was a 
6 
shoulder dystocia [which he] managed by shoulder rotation maneuver with the patient's 
7 
hips in a flexed position."2  Anna did not suffer any injuries as a result of the shoulder 
8 
dystocia. 
9 
 
 
Five years later, in 2004, mother became pregnant with her fourth child 
10 
Braedon.  By that time, Powell no longer worked for the Medical Group, and mother 
11 
began seeing a new obstetrician employed by the group, Dr. McCarthy.  When McCarthy 
12 
began providing prenatal care to mother, McCarthy reviewed the hospital file from 
13 
Anna's delivery in 1999.  That file contained Powell's notation that a shoulder dystocia 
14 
had occurred, a notation that McCarthy transferred to Braedon's prenatal records.  
15 
McCarthy, however, did not tell mother of the increased risk of another shoulder dystocia 
16 
and a brachial plexus injury, nor did she discuss with mother that, because of that risk, 
17 
she may want to consider a C-section. 
18 
                                              
 
2  
There was a dispute at trial whether a shoulder dystocia had, in fact, 
occurred during Anna's delivery or whether the chart notation was an instance in which 
Dr. Powell had "overcalled" the condition and used the shoulder rotation and flexed hip 
maneuvers only as prophylactic measures.  On review, we assume that the jury resolved 
that factual dispute consistently with its finding of negligence. 
4 
 
 
During the third trimester of mother's pregnancy with Braedon, McCarthy 
1 
observed that Braedon was "large for [his] gestational age."  To determine Braedon's 
2 
actual size, McCarthy ordered an ultrasound, which revealed that Braedon weighed 3964 
3 
grams.  Because mother was concerned about the size that Braedon would reach by the 
4 
time she went into labor, she asked, and McCarthy agreed, to induce labor early.  
5 
However, after receiving the results of the ultrasound, McCarthy did not tell mother that 
6 
the baby's fetal size increased the risk of a shoulder dystocia and a brachial plexus injury, 
7 
even though that risk factor and the earlier shoulder dystocia were both present.  By that 
8 
time, McCarthy had forgotten that a shoulder dystocia had occurred during Anna's 
9 
delivery. 
10 
 
 
Mother went into labor before it was scheduled to be induced.  When she 
11 
arrived at the hospital, McCarthy was unavailable; so, Dr. Monji, the on-call obstetrician, 
12 
assumed responsibility for delivering Braedon.  (Monji was also an employee of the 
13 
Medical Group.)  When Monji spoke with mother before the birth, she asked mother 
14 
whether there had been any complications in her previous deliveries.  Mother replied that 
15 
there had not been.  Additionally, the prenatal record that the Medical Group sent to the 
16 
hospital did not contain the notation of the earlier shoulder dystocia or the results of the 
17 
ultrasound and fetal size determination.  Monji accordingly did not discuss with mother 
18 
the risks of proceeding with a vaginal delivery rather than a C-section. 
19 
 
 
During Braedon's delivery, a shoulder dystocia occurred.  According to 
20 
Monji's delivery notes, Braedon was delivered "with a modified McRoberts maneuver."  
21 
At one point during Braedon's delivery, Monji asked father, who was in the delivery 
22 
5 
room, to help "get [mother's] legs way back," "up close to her chest," a request that was 
1 
consistent with using a McRoberts maneuver to deliver Braedon.  Father testified at trial 
2 
that, at a later point during the delivery, he saw Monji "plac[e] her hands around 
3 
Braedon's [head] -- underneath Braedon's jaw around his neck, and [she] was pulling."  
4 
At that point, father "thought that maybe something was wrong." 
5 
 
 
Braedon was born with bruises on his right arm, shoulder, and areas of his 
6 
chest.  After the delivery, the range of motion in his right arm was limited, and he was 
7 
transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit for observation.  When he was released 
8 
from the neonatal unit the next day, Braedon's color had substantially returned to normal, 
9 
but the range of motion in his right arm remained limited.  Braedon was eventually 
10 
diagnosed with a brachial plexus injury, an injury that has substantially impaired 
11 
Braedon's use of his right arm. 
12 
 
 
Mother and father (plaintiffs) filed this action for medical malpractice 
13 
against the Medical Group and various other defendants.3  Before trial, they amended the 
14 
complaint to allege claims against only the Medical Group, Dr. Monji, and Dr. McCarthy.  
15 
The day before trial, they dismissed their claims against Monji and McCarthy, leaving the 
16 
Medical Group as the only defendant.  Plaintiffs alleged that the Medical Group was 
17 
negligent: 
18 
                                              
 
3  
The third amended complaint named father and mother as plaintiffs, 
proceeding personally and as guardians ad litem on behalf of Braedon.  That complaint 
sought both economic and noneconomic damages to compensate for Braedon's injuries, 
as well as noneconomic damages to compensate for mother's injuries, which included 
emotional distress.  Only the claim for Braedon's economic and noneconomic damages 
was submitted to the jury. 
6 
"[(1)] In failing to inform [mother] that the occurrence of shoulder dystocia 
1 
in the March 3, 1999, delivery and the fetal size determination by Dr. 
2 
McCarthy and by the April 23, 2004, ultrasound increased the risk of 
3 
shoulder dystocia occurring in a vaginal delivery of Braedon 
4 
Klutschkowski; 
5 
"[(2)] In failing to inform [mother] that there was increased risk of Braedon 
6 
Klutschkowski suffering a brachial plexus injury if shoulder dystocia 
7 
occurred during his delivery; 
8 
"[(3)] In failing to offer [mother] the option of a C-section as an alternative 
9 
to a vaginal delivery of Braedon Klutschkowski; 
10 
"[(4)] In failing to document in [mother's] pregnancy record for her 
11 
pregnancy with Braedon Klutschkowski the occurrence of shoulder 
12 
dystocia during the March 3, 1999, delivery; [and] 
13 
"[(5)] In failing to inform Dr. Monji of the occurrence of the shoulder 
14 
dystocia in [mother's] March 3, 1999, delivery, of Dr. McCarthy's 
15 
assessment of Braedon's fetal size as large for gestational age and of the 
16 
April 23, 2004, ultrasound documentation of an estimated fetal weight of 
17 
3964 g. and greater than the 97th percentile[.]" 
18 
In a separate paragraph of the complaint, plaintiffs alleged that the Medical Group "did 
19 
not obtain [mother's] informed consent to delay Braedon Klutschkowski's delivery past 
20 
[the date of the ultrasound], and to deliver Braedon Klutschkowski vaginally rather than 
21 
by cesarean section."  Finally, plaintiffs alleged that, as a result of the Medical Group's 
22 
negligence and failure to obtain mother's informed consent, "Braedon Klutschkowski 
23 
suffered permanent and severe birth injuries when he was born on or about May 2, 2004." 
24 
 
 
We discuss below the specific objections and rulings that have given rise to 
25 
the petition and cross-petition for review in this case.  At this point, it is sufficient to note 
26 
that the jury returned a general verdict, finding that the Medical Group had been 
27 
negligent.  It awarded plaintiffs $557,881.11 in economic damages and $1,375,000 in 
28 
noneconomic damages.  After the jury returned its verdict, defendant moved to impose a 
29 
7 
$500,000 statutory cap on the jury's award of noneconomic damages.  Plaintiffs 
1 
responded that applying the cap would violate Article I, sections 10 and 17, of the 
2 
Oregon Constitution.  The trial court denied defendant's motion.  On appeal, the Court of 
3 
Appeals reversed the trial court's ruling that capping the jury's award of noneconomic 
4 
damages would violate the Oregon Constitution but otherwise affirmed the trial court's 
5 
judgment. 
6 
II 
7 
 
 
On appeal and again on review, the parties debate whether the trial court 
8 
erred in instructing the jury and whether applying a statutory cap to the jury's damages 
9 
award would violate the Oregon Constitution.  We begin with defendant's challenges to 
10 
giving plaintiffs' requested instruction on informed consent and to declining to give 
11 
defendant's requested instruction regarding its responsibility for its employees. 
12 
A 
13 
 
 
Defendant argues initially that the trial court erred in giving plaintiffs' 
14 
requested instruction on informed consent.  Because the Court of Appeals ruled that 
15 
defendant did not preserve its objection to that instruction or properly except to it, we set 
16 
out defendant's objections and exception to the instruction.  We then consider whether 
17 
defendant's objections and exception were sufficient to preserve the issue it sought to 
18 
raise on appeal.  Because we conclude that they were, we consider finally whether the 
19 
trial court committed reversible error in instructing the jury on informed consent. 
20 
 
 
At multiple points during the trial, the parties discussed whether and how 
21 
ORS 677.097, the informed consent statute, applies to a vaginal delivery.  Defendant 
22 
8 
consistently took the position that a vaginal delivery is not a "procedure or treatment" that 
1 
requires "informed consent" within the meaning of ORS 677.097.4  In defendant's view, a 
2 
vaginal delivery is the natural consequence of a pregnancy and will occur without regard 
3 
to whether the physician seeks or obtains the mother's consent.  As a result, defendant 
4 
argued, the informed consent statute never applies to a vaginal delivery.  Plaintiffs took 
5 
precisely the opposite position.  They argued that, as a matter of law, the statute always 
6 
applies to vaginal deliveries.  The trial court, for its part, consistently expressed its view 
7 
that whether and how the informed consent statute applies to vaginal deliveries is a 
8 
question for the jury. 
9 
 
 
On Monday morning, two days before the trial court instructed the jury, 
10 
defendant moved for a directed verdict on plaintiffs' informed consent claim, reiterating 
11 
its position that the informed consent statute does not apply to vaginal deliveries.  The 
12 
trial court denied that motion.  Immediately after ruling on that motion, the trial court 
13 
invited objections to its proposed instructions.  In a colloquy that covers more than 50 
14 
pages of the transcript, both sides raised numerous objections to the proposed 
15 
instructions.  When they reached the instruction on informed consent, the court 
16 
unilaterally noted the parties' competing positions and posed a hypothetical to the parties 
17 
to begin the discussion: 
18 
 
"THE COURT:  A woman shows up.  She's pregnant.  Her first set 
19 
                                              
 
4  
ORS 677.097 provides that a physician must describe the "procedure or 
treatment to be undertaken," alternatives to the procedure or treatment, and the "risks, if 
any, to the procedure or treatment."  Additionally, it specifies what a physician must do if 
a patient asks for more information about the procedure or treatment. 
9 
of options is have the child, not have the child.  She decides on having the 
1 
child.  Everyone, I gather from the testimony I'm hearing, decides it will be 
2 
vaginal.  That's the, for lack of a better term, the default position.  Your 
3 
position [defendant] is that informed consent is not required because [a 
4 
vaginal delivery is] the default position. 
5 
 
"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]:  Right.  Yes.  I mean, I don't know how -- 
6 
let's assume there's no -- there's no discussion at all, and the vaginal birth 
7 
just occurs.  Can the mother then just sue the doctor because, you know, 
8 
she -- she experiences complications and then says, hey, you didn't tell me a 
9 
pregnancy was dangerous, you didn't tell me a vaginal delivery could cause 
10 
me problems[.]  I wouldn't have done it otherwise.  I just -- it doesn't 
11 
follow.  There's -- you can't obtain informed consent for a vaginal 
12 
delivery." 
13 
 
 
The trial court explained that it had difficulty reconciling defendant's 
14 
position that informed consent is never required and plaintiffs' position that it is always 
15 
required.  It asked defense counsel: 
16 
"[I]f you take vaginal delivery as a default position, but [if you do] not 
17 
automatically assume there's no informed consent required [as defendant 
18 
does], nor automatically assume that it must be required [as plaintiffs do], 
19 
then is the determination of the duty not the jury's?" 
20 
Given that question, defense counsel answered, "It's the jury's.  It's the jury's 
21 
determination."  The trial court then asked, "So, if that's correct, then does this 
22 
[instruction on informed consent] belong in [the jury instructions] or not?  Because that's 
23 
my position."  Defense counsel answered, "No." 
24 
 
 
After considering the parties' objections, the trial court told the parties that 
25 
it would take the objections that they had made on the record as exceptions and that they 
26 
need not renew those exceptions after the court instructed the jury.  Specifically, the trial 
27 
court told the parties: 
28 
"All right.  I'm going to ask for exceptions after I instruct, and if you want 
29 
10 
to just be extra careful with your record, you can do that, but I'm going to 
1 
just -- I'm going to tell you now that any disagreement you have on the 
2 
record or any disagreement you have by virtue of an instruction you offered 
3 
the court that I haven't given, I will take that right now as an exception, and 
4 
I don't feel the need to add to that. 
5 
"The purpose of the change in [ORCP 59] is to articulate [a] reason that 
6 
might change my mind.  And I spent a couple weeks thinking about these 
7 
things, and I know that the three of you have spent far more than a couple 
8 
weeks thinking about these.  So I think we've had a pretty full discussion, 
9 
and I'm comfortable with your record." 
10 
 
 
The trial ended two days later on Wednesday.  That morning, the trial court 
11 
shared a "new version" of the instructions with the parties.  Plaintiffs objected to the new 
12 
version of the informed consent instruction because the court "ha[d] taken out the direct 
13 
instruction that Oregon Medical Group had the obligation to obtain her informed 
14 
consent."  The court acknowledged that it had taken out "the first paragraph [of the 
15 
instruction on informed consent] that I had had before" and noted plaintiffs' objection. 
16 
 
 
Later that day, the court instructed the jury.  In its instructions, the court 
17 
told the jury that plaintiffs had made five specific allegations of negligence and then 
18 
repeated to the jury, essentially verbatim, the five specifications of negligence quoted 
19 
above.  The court described what plaintiffs had to prove to recover on their negligence 
20 
claim, instructed the jury on foreseeability, and also instructed on the standard of care.  It 
21 
then turned to informed consent.  The instruction on informed consent divides into two 
22 
parts.  The first part, which we do not quote in full, told the jury what "a physician must 
23 
explain" "[t]o obtain the informed consent of a patient."  The second part of the 
24 
instruction told the jury: 
25 
 
"A failure to obtain Mrs. Klutschkowski's informed consent may be 
26 
11 
considered by you in determining whether or not defendant was negligent. 
1 
 
"In order to find defendant negligent in failing to provide informed 
2 
consent, you must determine that Mrs. Klutschkowski would not have 
3 
consented to a vaginal delivery had all the risks and alternatives you find to 
4 
be material been disclosed to her." 
5 
 
 
After instructing the jury, the trial court told counsel for both parties that it 
6 
was "tak[ing] as given all the exceptions that you * * * have already made" and asked 
7 
whether counsel "wish[ed] to make any other exceptions?"  In response to that question, 
8 
defense counsel identified one other exception that he did not think he previously had 
9 
mentioned.  The court noted the exception, and the parties gave their closing arguments 
10 
to the jury. 
11 
 
 
The jury returned a general verdict finding that defendant was "negligent in 
12 
one or more ways alleged by plaintiffs" and, as noted, awarded plaintiffs $557,881.11 in 
13 
economic damages and $1,375,000 in noneconomic damages.  Defendant appealed, 
14 
assigning error to the trial court's rulings denying its motion for a directed verdict on 
15 
plaintiffs' informed consent claim and overruling its objection to instructing the jury on 
16 
informed consent.  On appeal, defendant argued that both rulings were incorrect for the 
17 
same reason -- the informed consent statute has no application to a vaginal delivery. 
18 
 
 
Relying on Shoup v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 335 Or 164, 173-74, 61 P3d 
19 
928 (2003), the Court of Appeals held that defendant had not shown prejudice from any 
20 
error in denying its directed verdict motion.  Klutschkowski, 245 Or App at 538-39.  The 
21 
Court of Appeals started from the proposition that plaintiffs' informed consent claim was 
22 
effectively a sixth specification of negligence.  Id.  Given the jury's general verdict, the 
23 
12 
court reasoned that the jury could have found defendant negligent based on one or more 
1 
of the first five specifications of negligence, which defendant had not challenged, rather 
2 
than on the informed consent claim.  Id.  It followed that defendant could not show that 
3 
any error in submitting plaintiffs' informed consent claim to the jury had prejudiced it.  
4 
Id. at 539 (citing Shoup, 335 Or at 176).  
5 
 
 
The Court of Appeals then turned to defendant's objection to the instruction 
6 
on informed consent.  It observed that ORCP 59 H(1) provides that "[a] party may not 
7 
obtain review on appeal of an asserted error by a trial court * * * in giving or refusing to 
8 
give an instruction to the jury" unless the party challenging the trial court's instructional 
9 
ruling has "identified the asserted error to the trial court and made a notation of exception 
10 
immediately after the court instructed the jury."  The court also observed that ORCP 
11 
59 H(2) requires that the exception be "state[d] with particularity." 
12 
 
 
The court reasoned that ORCP 59 H barred defendant's challenge to the 
13 
instruction on informed consent because defendant had not excepted with particularity to 
14 
that instruction.  245 Or App at 543-44.  The court recognized that a party could comply 
15 
with ORCP 59 H by incorporating an earlier objection by reference.  Id. at 540-41.  
16 
However, the Court of Appeals explained that, in this case, it could not tell whether the 
17 
terms of the trial court's proposed instructions had changed between Monday (the day 
18 
that defendant had objected to the instruction on informed consent) and Wednesday (the 
19 
day that the trial court had instructed the jury) in such a way that defendant's earlier 
20 
objection no longer applied.  Id. at 543. 
21 
 
 
The Court of Appeals identified an additional reason for not reaching the 
22 
13 
merits of defendant's objection.  It explained that, in the trial court, defendant's objection 
1 
to instructing the jury on informed consent had turned on whether "the particular facts of 
2 
this case required [defendant] to inform [mother] about [the] risks of and alternatives to 
3 
delivering Braedon vaginally."  Id. (emphasis in original).  Given that view of defendant's 
4 
trial position, the Court of Appeals concluded that defendant's argument on appeal -- 
5 
"that no instruction on informed consent should have been given because, as a matter of 
6 
law, informed consent was inapposite -- was unpreserved for appellate review."  Id. at 
7 
543-44 (emphasis in original).  
8 
 
 
On review, defendant argues that, in promulgating ORCP 59 H, the Council 
9 
on Court Procedures had neither the authority nor the intent to limit the appellate courts' 
10 
ability to review a trial court's rulings on instructions.  We need not resolve that issue; 
11 
even if ORCP 59 H prescribes what a party must do to perfect an objection to an 
12 
instructional ruling, defendant complied with that rule.  Before explaining why we reach 
13 
that conclusion, it is perhaps helpful to start with the Court of Appeals' alternative 
14 
holding that defendant did not preserve the issue it sought to raise on appeal -- that 
15 
informed consent never applies to a vaginal delivery. 
16 
 
 
The Court of Appeals stated that, in light of the trial court's colloquy with 
17 
defense counsel, "the [trial] court understood that whether informed consent was required 
18 
in this case was a jury question -- an understanding with which [defendant's] counsel 
19 
agreed."  245 Or App at 534.  The Court of Appeals based its understanding of 
20 
defendant's trial position on the colloquy quoted above.  See id. at 534 n 9 (quoting that 
21 
colloquy as the basis for the court's statement).  In that colloquy, the trial court asked 
22 
14 
defense counsel: 
1 
"If you take vaginal delivery as a default position, but [do] not 
2 
automatically assume that therefore there's no informed consent required, 
3 
nor automatically assume that [informed consent] must be required, then is 
4 
the determination of the duty not the jury's?" 
5 
Defense counsel replied, "It's the jury's.  It's the jury's determination." 
6 
 
 
The trial court's question asked defense counsel to "not automatically 
7 
assume that * * * there's no informed consent required."  The question thus assumed 
8 
away defendant's position that informed consent is never required for vaginal deliveries.  
9 
Defense counsel's answer was responsive to the question the trial court put to him, but it 
10 
did not signal that defense counsel was somehow abandoning the position that defendant 
11 
consistently had taken throughout the trial.  Were there any doubt about the matter, 
12 
immediately after defense counsel stated, "It's the jury's determination," the trial court 
13 
asked, "So, if that's correct, then does this [instruction on informed consent] belong in 
14 
[the jury instructions] or not?  Because that's my position [that it does]."  Defense counsel 
15 
responded, "No."  Defendant preserved the issue that it sought to raise on appeal -- that 
16 
informed consent never applies to vaginal deliveries. 
17 
 
 
Having concluded that defendant preserved its objection, we turn to the 
18 
question whether defendant's exception after the trial court gave its instructions complied 
19 
with ORCP 59 H.  As noted, the trial court told the parties that it understood their 
20 
positions on informed consent and that it would take the objections that they had raised to 
21 
its proposed instructions as exceptions.  Later, after instructing the jury, the court told the 
22 
parties that it was "tak[ing] as given all the exceptions that you * * * have already made" 
23 
15 
and asked whether the parties had "any other" exceptions.  The effect of the trial court's 
1 
statement was to incorporate by reference defendant's earlier objections as exceptions to 
2 
the instructions the trial court just gave. 
3 
 
 
This court has explained that the purpose of ORCP 59 H is to "inform the 
4 
trial court that the instruction may be erroneous and to give the court an opportunity to 
5 
make corrections."  Delaney, 297 Or 18; see also Jett v. Ford Motor Co., 335 Or 493, 
6 
502-03, 72 P3d 71 (2003).   Exceptions must be stated with enough particularity "to 
7 
apprise the trial court that it was erroneously explaining [the law] to the jury."  State v. 
8 
Crosby, 342 Or 419, 427, 154 P3d 97 (2007).  The exception in this case satisfied that 
9 
standard. 
10 
 
 
Defendant consistently and repeatedly took the position that, as a matter of 
11 
law, a vaginal delivery is not a "procedure or treatment" that requires consent within the 
12 
meaning of the informed consent statute.  When the trial court stated that it was "tak[ing] 
13 
as given all the exceptions that you * * * have already made," that statement was 
14 
sufficient to incorporate by reference defendant's objection to instructing the jury on 
15 
informed consent.  In light of the trial court's earlier statement that it would take the 
16 
parties' objections as exceptions, defendant did not need to do anything more to put the 
17 
court on notice of its continued position that any instruction on informed consent was 
18 
error.  See Delaney, 297 Or at 18 (stating the purpose for taking exceptions). 
19 
 
 
We appreciate the Court of Appeals' concern that, when a trial court has 
20 
repeatedly modified its instructions in response to a party's shifting objections, an 
21 
exception "for the reasons previously stated" may not put a trial court on notice of which 
22 
16 
objection or objections the party still believes are germane.  In this case, however, 
1 
defendant's position -- that informed consent never applies to vaginal deliveries -- was 
2 
consistent throughout the trial.  Not only was the trial court well aware of the basis for 
3 
defendant's objection to its informed consent instruction, but it also was well aware that 
4 
the only modification that would have satisfied defendant's objection would have been to 
5 
omit any reference to informed consent altogether, which it did not do.  In those 
6 
circumstances, defendant's exception complied with ORCP 59 H. 
7 
 
 
Turning to the merits of defendant's objection, we note that defendant did 
8 
not object at trial to the informed consent instruction on the ground that it inaccurately 
9 
stated the law.  Rather, defendant objected to the instruction for the same reason that it 
10 
had moved for a directed verdict.  In defendant's view, informed consent has no 
11 
application to a vaginal delivery, and any claim based on informed consent should not be 
12 
submitted to the jury.  Similarly, in its brief in the Court of Appeals, defendant equated 
13 
its motion for a directed verdict and its objection to the instruction on informed consent.  
14 
In defendant's view, the trial court's rulings on its directed verdict motion and its 
15 
objection suffered from the same infirmity:  both put before the jury a theory of liability 
16 
that should never have been submitted to it.  
17 
 
 
In this posture, we think that the same answer applies to both rulings.  
18 
Under Shoup, even if the trial court erred in submitting that theory of liability to the jury, 
19 
defendant failed to show that doing so prejudiced it.  As the Court of Appeals reasoned, 
20 
the trial court instructed the jury on five specifications of negligence to which defendant 
21 
raised no objection.  It also instructed the jury on what the Court of Appeals characterized 
22 
17 
as a sixth specification of negligence.  Without a special verdict identifying which 
1 
specification or specifications gave rise to the jury's finding of negligence, we cannot say 
2 
that any error in submitting the informed consent specification prejudiced defendant. 
3 
 
 
Our decision in Wallach v. Allstate Ins. Co., 344 Or 314, 180 P3d 19 
4 
(2008), is not to the contrary.  In that case, the trial court incorrectly instructed the jury on 
5 
how to allocate damages among successive tortfeasors; that is, the instruction gave the 
6 
jury the wrong legal rule to decide an issue that everyone agreed was properly before the 
7 
jury.  See id. at 320-21.  As noted, defendant has not argued that the instruction on 
8 
informed consent incorrectly stated the law.  Rather, defendant's objection to instructing 
9 
the jury on informed consent was the functional equivalent of its motion for a directed 
10 
verdict on that claim.  Both sought to take the issue away from the jury.  On review, 
11 
defendant does not dispute that the Court of Appeals correctly held that, under Shoup, it 
12 
failed to prove that any error in denying its directed verdict motion prejudiced it.  The 
13 
same conclusion applies equally to its objection to instructing the jury on informed 
14 
consent. 
15 
B 
16 
 
 
We turn to defendant's remaining claim of instructional error.  Before trial, 
17 
plaintiffs dismissed their claims against all defendants except the Medical Group.  In 
18 
explaining the acts for which the Medical Group could be held liable, the trial court 
19 
instructed the jury: 
20 
"In this case, Oregon Medical Group is the defendant.  A corporation can 
21 
act only through its agents or employees.  Any action by the agent or 
22 
employee of the corporation is the act of that corporation.  I instruct you 
23 
18 
that Dr. McCarthy and Dr. Monji were the agents and employees of Oregon 
1 
Medical Group." 
2 
Before the trial court, defendant argued that the court's proposed instruction was accurate 
3 
but incomplete.  Defendant observed that there was evidence that Dr. Powell was also an 
4 
employee of the Medical Group, and it reasoned that the trial court's instructions 
5 
permitted the jury to find the Medical Group liable for any negligence on Powell's part, 
6 
even though the statute of ultimate repose barred any claim against defendant based on 
7 
Powell's actions.5  To prevent the jury from holding it liable for any negligence on 
8 
Powell's part, defendant requested the following instruction: 
9 
"There are no allegations of negligence against either Dr. Powell or Sacred 
10 
Heart Hospital, and plaintiffs are not claiming either Dr. Powell or Sacred 
11 
Heart Hospital violated the applicable standard of care in any way."6 
12 
After an extensive colloquy on Wednesday morning in which defendant repeatedly stated 
13 
its position that the trial court's proposed instruction was incomplete, the trial court 
14 
declined to supplement its instruction with defendant's requested instruction.   
15 
 
 
On appeal, defendant assigned error to the trial court's ruling declining to 
16 
give its requested instruction; defendant argued that the ruling constituted reversible error 
17 
because it "created an erroneous impression of the law in the minds of the members of 
18 
the jury[.]"  See Hernandez v. Barbo Machinery Co., 327 Or 99, 106, 957 P2d 147 
19 
(1998).  Plaintiffs responded that defendant's requested instruction was not necessary to 
20 
                                              
 
5  
Powell had been an employee of the Medical Group when he delivered 
Anna in 1999; plaintiffs have not disputed that ORS 12.110(4) barred a negligence claim 
against defendant because of any actions or omissions on Powell's part. 
 
6  
The Medical Group did not explain why its requested instruction included 
the actions of Sacred Heart Hospital, which was dismissed as a defendant. 
19 
explain a material issue and that the instructions the trial court gave explained fully the 
1 
specific allegations of negligence that plaintiffs were required to prove.  The Court of 
2 
Appeals affirmed the trial court's ruling without discussion.  Klutschkowski, 245 Or App 
3 
at 537. 
4 
 
 
On review, defendant renews its argument that the trial court erred in 
5 
failing to give its requested instruction.  To the extent that the Court of Appeals declined 
6 
to review defendant's assignment of error because defendant had not properly excepted to 
7 
the trial court's failure to give its requested instruction, the Court of Appeals erred for the 
8 
reasons stated above.  The colloquy between the trial court and defense counsel after the 
9 
trial court instructed the jury was sufficient to incorporate by reference defendant's earlier 
10 
objection.  We accordingly turn to the merits of defendant's objection. 
11 
 
 
Read in isolation, the trial court's instruction that a corporation is liable for 
12 
the negligence of its employees posed a risk that the jury could find defendant liable for 
13 
Powell's negligent acts or omissions.  Powell had been an employee of the Medical 
14 
Group when he delivered Anna in 1999, and nothing in the instructions stating that the 
15 
Medical Group was liable for its employees' actions precluded the jury from looking to 
16 
Powell's actions in 1999 as a source of defendant's liability.  Affirmatively instructing the 
17 
jury that Drs. McCarthy and Monji were defendant's employees did not preclude the jury 
18 
from finding that Powell was also defendant's employee. 
19 
 
 
Plaintiffs argue, however, that the specifications of negligence that the trial 
20 
court read to the jury as part of its instructions effectively limited the jury to finding 
21 
defendant negligent based on the actions of McCarthy and Monji.  We agree.  Those 
22 
20 
specifications alleged that defendant was negligent in its conduct during mother's 
1 
pregnancy with Braedon, not in its conduct during her earlier pregnancies.7  In 
2 
Hernandez, we explained that a trial court's refusal to give a party's requested instruction 
3 
is not reversible error "if the substance of the requested instruction, even if correct, was 
4 
covered fully by other jury instructions given by the trial court."  327 Or at 106.  Read as 
5 
a whole, the instructions that the trial court gave fully conveyed the substance of the 
6 
requested instruction; put differently, we cannot say that the trial court's instructions, read 
7 
as a whole, "created an erroneous impression of law in the minds of the members of the 
8 
jury[.]"  See id. 
9 
III 
10 
 
 
Having addressed the instructional issues raised in defendant's cross-
11 
petition for review, we turn to the constitutional issue raised in plaintiffs' petition for 
12 
review.  After the jury returned its verdict, defendant moved to cap the noneconomic 
13 
damages that the jury had awarded.  See ORS 31.710(1) (imposing a $500,000 cap on 
14 
noneconomic damages).  Plaintiffs responded that applying the cap would violate their 
15 
right to a remedy under Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution8 and their right 
16 
                                              
 
7  
The first, second, third, and fourth specifications of negligence, which the 
trial court read to the jury, refer to specific actions or omissions regarding either 
Braedon's delivery or the failure to inform mother of risk factors regarding Braedon's 
delivery.  The fifth specification refers to the failure to inform Dr. Monji of certain 
information.  Finally, the informed consent instruction, read in context, refers to the 
failure to inform mother of the risks of and alternatives to delivering Braedon vaginally. 
 
8  
Article I, section 10, provides: 
"No court shall be secret, but justice shall be administered, openly and 
21 
to a jury trial under Article I, section 17, and Article VII (Amended), section 3.9  Under 
1 
our decisions, the initial question that plaintiffs' constitutional claims raise is whether the 
2 
common law recognized a right to recover for prenatal injuries when Oregon adopted its 
3 
constitution in 1857.  See Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 332 Or 83, 124, 23 P3d 
4 
333 (2001) (Article I, section 10); Hughes v. PeaceHealth, 344 Or 142, 156, 178 P3d 225 
5 
(2008) (Article I, section 17).  If it did, then Article I, sections 10 and 17, limit the 
6 
legislature's authority to modify plaintiffs' cause of action for medical malpractice and to 
7 
reduce the jury's damages award.  See Smothers, 332 Or at 124 (so holding); Hughes, 344 
8 
Or at 156 (same). 
9 
 
 
Before the trial court, the parties focused on a Court of Appeals decision, 
10 
Christiansen v. Providence Health System, 210 Or App 290, 202, 150 P3d 50 (2006), 
11 
aff'd on other grounds, 344 Or 445, 184 P3d 1121 (2008), which had held that, when 
12 
Oregon adopted its constitution in 1857, the common law did not recognize an infant's 
13 
right to recover for prenatal injuries.  Defendant took the position that, under 
14 
Christiansen, all injuries that occur before an infant emerges completely from his or her 
15 
__________________ 
without purchase, completely and without delay, and every man shall have 
remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, property, or 
reputation." 
 
9  
Article I, section 17, provides:  "In all civil cases the right of Trial by Jury 
shall remain inviolate."  Article VII (Amended), section 3, provides in part: 
"In actions at law, where the value in controversy shall exceed $750, the 
right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be 
otherwise re-examined in any court of this state, unless the court can 
affirmatively say there is no evidence to support the verdict." 
22 
mother's body are prenatal.  Plaintiffs took the position that the phrase "prenatal injuries" 
1 
means injuries that occur while the child is in the mother's womb but does not include 
2 
injuries that occur while the child is in the birth canal.  After considering the parties' 
3 
arguments and the evidence presented at trial, the trial court denied defendant's motion 
4 
and entered judgment for the full amount of the damages that the jury had awarded. 
5 
 
 
On appeal, the Court of Appeals interpreted its decision in Christiansen as 
6 
holding that "a claim for prenatal injuries -- including those that occur during birth -- did 
7 
not exist at the time that the Oregon Constitution was adopted."  Klutschkowski, 245 Or 
8 
App at 546.  Because Braedon's injuries had occurred during birth, the Court of Appeals 
9 
held that, under Smothers, Hughes, and Christiansen, plaintiffs' constitutional challenges 
10 
to capping the jury's award of noneconomic damages necessarily failed.  Id. at 546-47.10  
11 
The Court of Appeals accordingly reversed the trial court's judgment to the extent it 
12 
included all the noneconomic damages the jury had awarded. 
13 
 
 
In this case, neither party has asked us to reconsider our decisions under 
14 
Article I, section 10, or Article I, section 17.  That is, both parties accept that the common 
15 
law, as it existed in 1857, is the initial measure of the rights that Article I, sections 10 
16 
and 17, grant.11  The constitutional question raised by plaintiffs' petition for review 
17 
                                              
 
10  
Oregon has recognized a common-law right to recover for prenatal injuries 
since 1955.  See Mallison v. Pomeroy, 205 Or 690, 291 P2d 225 (1955).  The state of the 
common law when Oregon adopted its constitution in 1857 is relevant only because, 
under Smothers and Hughes, that issue bears on whether Article I, sections 10 and 17, 
limit the legislature's authority to alter a cause of action or reduce the amount of a jury 
award. 
 
11  
Plaintiffs recognize that the common law, as it existed in 1857, is the initial 
23 
accordingly reduces to whether, in 1857, the common law recognized a claim for the type 
1 
of injuries that occurred in this case. 
2 
 
 
To put that question in context, it is helpful to recount both the nature of 
3 
plaintiff's claim for negligence and also the facts that bear on when the injury to Braedon 
4 
occurred.  Essentially, plaintiffs' third amended complaint alleged that, at various points 
5 
during mother's pregnancy, defendant negligently failed to inform her that the baby could 
6 
experience a shoulder dystocia and a brachial plexus injury during a vaginal delivery and 
7 
that she could choose a C-section instead.  Although the negligent omissions that gave 
8 
rise to plaintiffs' claim occurred at one or more points during mother's pregnancy, the 
9 
harm that made plaintiffs' claim actionable could and did manifest itself only during 
10 
delivery and, in this case, resulted in physical injuries only to Braedon.  Cf. Lowe v. 
11 
Philip Morris USA, 344 Or 403, 410-11, 183 P3d 181 (2008) (a plaintiff must allege and 
12 
prove an actual loss or harm to make out a claim for negligence).  Put differently, even 
13 
though the negligent omissions were separated in time from the injuries that Braedon 
14 
sustained, those injuries were the direct and foreseeable consequence of defendant's 
15 
earlier failure to warn mother of the risks that, in her case, a vaginal delivery posed to her 
16 
child. 
17 
 
 
Moreover, the trial court reasonably could have found that the injury to 
18 
__________________ 
measure of those rights but argue that we should hold that Article I, section 10, protects 
common-law causes of action not only as they existed in 1857 but also as those causes of 
action have evolved over time.  Given our disposition of plaintiffs' claim, we need not 
consider plaintiffs' argument and express no opinion on it. 
24 
Braedon occurred, to use Dr. Monji's words, after Braedon's head had been delivered.12  
1 
On that issue, one doctor testified, to a reasonable medical probability, that a shoulder 
2 
dystocia had occurred when Monji delivered Braedon.  Other doctors testified that, when 
3 
a shoulder dystocia occurs (when the baby's anterior shoulder gets stuck behind the 
4 
mother's pubic bone), the baby's head typically will have emerged from the mother's 
5 
body.  Father testified that his observations in the delivery room were consistent with 
6 
Monji's deposition testimony -- namely, that she employed a McRoberts maneuver "only 
7 
after the delivery of Braedon's head."  In a related vein, father told mother that, after 
8 
Braedon's head had emerged, Monji put her hands around Braedon's head and "was 
9 
pulling very forcibly, and seem[ed] like she was stretching Braedon's neck."13  Given that 
10 
evidence, the trial court reasonably could have found that a shoulder dystocia occurred, 
11 
with a resulting brachial plexus injury, after the delivery of Braedon's head. 
12 
 
 
With those facts in mind, we turn to the state of the common law when 
13 
Oregon adopted its constitution in 1857.  The common law has recognized a cause of 
14 
action for negligence since at least the time of the American Revolution.  Smothers, 332 
15 
                                              
 
12  
In deciding defendant's post-verdict motion to cap the noneconomic 
damages and plaintiffs' constitutional objection to that motion, the trial court considered 
the parties' arguments as to when the injury to Braedon occurred.  We state the facts 
consistently with the trial court's post-verdict ruling -- namely, in the light most favorable 
to plaintiffs. 
 
13  
As defendant notes, plaintiffs dismissed their claim that Monji caused the 
injury to Braedon's arm by negligently pulling on his head.  We quote father's statements 
to mother only as evidence from which the trial court could have found that the risk that 
defendant negligently failed to warn mother about -- a shoulder dystocia and a resulting 
brachial plexus injury -- occurred after Braedon's head had emerged from his mother's 
body. 
25 
Or at 129.  Similarly, a cause of action for medical malpractice preexisted the adoption of 
1 
the Oregon Constitution.  See, e.g., Mead v. Legacy Health System, 352 Or 267, 276 n 7, 
2 
283 P3d 904 (2012) (discussing the sources of medical malpractice actions); see also 
3 
William Blackstone, 3 Commentaries on the Laws of England 122 (1768).14  Because 
4 
plaintiffs seek to recover for the negligence and malpractice of defendant's employees, it 
5 
appears, at first blush, that plaintiffs are entitled to the protections of Article I, sections 10 
6 
and 17. 
7 
 
 
Defendant argues, however, that an exception to those general principles 
8 
existed in 1857.  Defendant relies on two cases, one from Massachusetts in 1884 and 
9 
another from Illinois in 1900, for the proposition that, in 1857, an infant had no cause of 
10 
action for prenatal injuries.  See Dietrich v. Northampton, 138 Mass 14 (1884); Allaire v. 
11 
St. Luke's Hosp., 184 Ill 359, 56 NE 638 (1900).  We turn to those cases to determine the 
12 
extent to which they carve out an exception from the general principle that negligence 
13 
and medical malpractice were recognized causes of action in 1857. 
14 
 
 
In Dietrich, the mother was four to five months pregnant when she slipped 
15 
on a defect in a town highway and fell.  138 Mass at 14.  The fall brought on a 
16 
                                              
 
14  
Blackstone notes: 
"[I]t hath been solemnly resolved, that mala praxis is a great misdemeanor 
and offence at common law, whether it be for curiosity and experiment, or 
by neglect; because it breaks the trust which the party had placed in his 
physician, and tends to the patient's destruction.  Thus also, in the civil law, 
neglect or want of skill in physicians and surgeons[.]" 
William Blackstone, 3 Commentaries on the Laws of England 122 (1768). 
26 
miscarriage, and the infant survived its premature birth only briefly.  Id. at 15.  When the 
1 
administrator of the child's estate brought a claim against the town for negligently 
2 
maintaining the highway, the court dismissed the claim on the ground that the common 
3 
law did not recognize a civil cause of action for injuries "received by [a child] while in its 
4 
mother's womb."  Id. 
5 
 
 
In reaching that conclusion, the court focused primarily on distinguishing 
6 
English authorities that had recognized criminal liability for injurious acts directed at an 
7 
unborn child and also certain property rights in unborn children.  Id. at 15-17.  
8 
Essentially, the court explained that the reasons for imposing criminal liability for 
9 
injuring unborn children and for recognizing certain property rights in unborn children 
10 
did not warrant extending civil liability for a negligent breach of the general standard of 
11 
care.  Id.  Beyond that, the court offered three reasons for not recognizing a cause of 
12 
action for negligence.  It noted initially that "no case, so far as we know, has ever decided 
13 
that, if the infant survived, it could maintain an action for injuries received by it while in 
14 
its mother's womb."  Id. at 15.15  It held out the possibility that any injury to a fetus that 
15 
resulted from a negligent injury to the mother was too remote to be recoverable.  Id. at 
16 
16-17.  Finally, it reasoned that, "as the unborn child was a part of the mother at the time 
17 
of the injury, any damage to it which was not too remote to be recovered for at all was 
18 
                                              
 
15  
Because the child in Dietrich had been born alive, the court did not invoke 
common-law cases for the proposition that a stillborn child does not have a civil cause of 
action, nor did the court invoke the common-law rule that a tort claim does not survive 
the decedent's death, cf. Hughes, 344 Or at 152 (reasoning that, in 1857, the common law 
did not recognize wrongful death actions). 
27 
recoverable by her."  Id. at 17. 
1 
 
 
The facts in Allaire were essentially the same as those in Dietrich.  The 
2 
mother in Allaire suffered an injury during the course of her pregnancy as the result of an 
3 
accident, and the physical injury to the mother had a consequential effect on the health of 
4 
the child.  See Allaire, 184 Ill at 361-62.16  As the court phrased the issue in Allaire, the 
5 
question was whether the child, "at the time of the alleged injury, in contemplation of the 
6 
common law, [had] such distinct and independent existence that he may maintain the 
7 
action, or was he, in the view of the common law, a part of his mother."  Id. at 365.  The 
8 
court stated that, if the injury occurred while the child was part of the mother, the child 
9 
could not maintain an action.  The court explained that, "if [the child was] a part of his 
10 
mother [when the injury occurred, then] the injury was to her and not to the [child]."  Id. 
11 
 
 
In considering that issue, the court quoted the passage from Dietrich that 
12 
explained that, because the unborn child was part of the mother, "any damage to [the 
13 
child] which was not too remote to be recovered for at all was recoverable by her."  See 
14 
id. at 366 (quoting Dietrich, 138 Mass at 17).  The court also cited a case from the Irish 
15 
courts, Walker v. Great Northern Railway Co., 28 LR Ir 69 (1890), which had held that a 
16 
child had no cause of action for a railroad's negligence because the railroad owed a duty 
17 
to the mother but not to her unborn child.  See Allaire, 184 Ill at 366.17  Having noted the 
18 
                                              
 
16 
The complaint in Allaire alleged that the mother had gone to a hospital ten 
days before the expected birth of her child. While riding in an unenclosed elevator, she 
suffered an accidental injury, and the injury to the mother resulted in a consequential 
injury to the fetus, which was delivered sometime after the injury to the mother. 
 
17  
In Walker, the mother was injured as a result of the railroad's negligence, 
28 
rationales in both Dietrich and Walker, the court in Allaire took a more categorical 
1 
approach to the issue.  It asked whether the child was "part of the mother" when the 
2 
injury occurred, and it answered that question by positing "[t]hat a child before birth is, in 
3 
fact, a part of the mother and is only severed from her at birth."  Id. at 368.  Because the 
4 
child in Allaire had been part of the mother at the time of the injury, the court concluded 
5 
that the child had no cause of action against the defendant. 
6 
 
 
The question in both Dietrich and Allaire was whether a child could bring a 
7 
cause of action for a negligently inflicted injury to its mother during the course of her 
8 
pregnancy that resulted in a consequential injury to what was, at the time of the injury, a 
9 
fetus.18  Neither case presented the issue that this case does; that is, neither case 
10 
addressed whether a defendant's negligence that directly causes an independent physical 
11 
injury to the child during delivery was actionable at common law.  Both the timing of the 
12 
injury and the relationship between the defendant's negligence and the injury distinguish 
13 
this case from Dietrich and Allaire.  On the first point, we note that the injury that 
14 
Braedon sustained did not occur while he was in his mother's womb.  Not only had 
15 
__________________ 
with consequential injuries to the child she was carrying.  In a series of seriatim opinions, 
the court held that the child, once born, had no cause of action against the railroad.  The 
common rationale was that the railroad owed a duty only to the mother, the person whom 
it had contracted to carry, and, as a result, owed no duty to the unborn child.  
 
18  
The decisions from other states that followed Dietrich and Allaire arose out 
of a similar fact pattern.  All the cases address negligently inflicted injuries to the mother 
during the course of the pregnancy that had a consequential effect on the fetus.  See, e.g., 
Buel v. United Rys. Co., 248 Mo 126, 154 SW 71 (1913); Nugent v. Brooklyn Heights 
R.R., 154 AD 667, 139 NYS 367 (1913); Lipps v. Milwaukee Elec. Ry., 164 Wis 272, 159 
NW 916 (1916); Drobner v. Peters, 194 AD 696, 186 NYS 278 (1921).  See generally 
David A. Gordon, The Unborn Plaintiff, 63 Mich L Rev 579 (1965). 
29 
delivery begun when Braedon suffered an injury as a result of defendant's negligence, but 
1 
the trial court could have found that Braedon's head had emerged from his mother's body 
2 
when the injury occurred.  Simply as a matter of categorization, it is difficult to say that 
3 
Braedon was "part of the mother" at the time of the injury. 
4 
 
 
Additionally, the considerations that underlay the categorization that 
5 
Dietrich invoked and on which Allaire placed greater reliance -- that the child was "part 
6 
of the mother" at the time of the injury -- are absent here.  This is not a case in which the 
7 
harm that Braedon sustained as a result of defendant's negligence was too remote to be 
8 
actionable, as the court concluded the child's injury was in Dietrich.  Rather, as explained 
9 
above, the direct and foreseeable consequence of defendant's earlier failure to advise 
10 
mother of the risks of a vaginal delivery was that Braedon's shoulder would become stuck 
11 
behind his mother's pubic bone during delivery and that he would suffer a brachial plexus 
12 
injury as a result.  Similarly, this is not a case in which, as in Walker, the defendant owed 
13 
no duty to Braedon.  It would be difficult to say that the obstetrician, who at the time of 
14 
Braedon's injury held his head in the palms of her hands, owed no duty of care to him.  
15 
See Mead, 352 Or at 277 (describing when a physician ordinarily owes a duty of care to a 
16 
patient).  Finally, defendant's negligence resulted in a physical injury only to Braedon, 
17 
and not to his mother.  Without a physical injury to the mother, it is difficult to bring this 
18 
case within the reasoning of Allaire, which appeared to view the fact that the "injury was 
19 
to [the mother] and not to [the child]" as synonymous with its conclusion that the child 
20 
was "part of the mother" when the injury occurred.  See Allaire, 184 Ill at 365. 
21 
 
 
To the extent that Dietrich and Allaire carve out an exception from the 
22 
30 
general principle that actions for negligence and medical malpractice were recognized 
1 
causes of action when Oregon adopted its constitution in 1857, they carve out an 
2 
exception for negligent acts that cause physical injury to the mother and a consequential 
3 
injury to the fetus during the course of the mother's pregnancy.  The injury that occurred 
4 
here does not come within the scope of the exception those cases recognized. 
5 
 
 
One final point deserves mention.  The Oregon Court of Appeals held in 
6 
Christiansen that, in 1857, the common law did not recognize an action for injuries an 
7 
infant sustained during delivery.  See 210 Or App at 292, 302.   Defendant commends 
8 
Christiansen's holding to us and quotes a passage from that decision in support of its 
9 
position in this case.  The difficulty with defendant's reliance on that passage is that the 
10 
sources Christiansen cited in that passage do not do support the conclusion it reached. 
11 
 
 
The passage from Christiansen on which defendant relies cites two sources.  
12 
See 210 Or App at 298.  The first is Allaire, which we have already discussed.  Id.  The 
13 
second is a 1971 annotation in the American Law Reports.  Specifically, Christiansen 
14 
cited two sections of that annotation for the proposition that an injury that occurs during 
15 
delivery was not actionable in 1857.  See id. (citing Roland F. Chase, Annotation, 
16 
Liability for Prenatal Injuries, 40 ALR 3d 1222 § 1[a] n 5, § 2[a] (1971)).  The first 
17 
section that Christiansen cited merely defines the scope of the annotation, which surveys 
18 
cases from 1884 to 1971.  See 40 ALR 3d 1222 § 1[a] n 5.  That section does not purport 
19 
to describe the injuries that were actionable in the nineteenth century.  The second section 
20 
of the annotation that Christiansen cited discusses briefly the "[h]istorical development of 
21 
law of prenatal injuries."  Id. § 2[a].  That section of the annotation describes the holdings 
22 
31 
in Dietrich and Allaire, but does not say that those decisions apply to injuries that a child 
1 
sustains independently during delivery.  In our view, the passage on which defendant 
2 
relies provides no persuasive support for the conclusion that Christiansen reached and 
3 
that defendant urges us to adopt. 
4 
 
 
We assume, for the purposes of deciding this case, that Dietrich and Allaire 
5 
carve out an exception to the general principle that negligence and medical malpractice 
6 
were recognized causes of action in 1857; that is, we assume that those decisions stand 
7 
for the proposition that, in 1857, a child would not have had a cause of action for physical 
8 
injuries to the mother during the course of her pregnancy that resulted from a breach of 
9 
the general standard of due care and that had only a consequential effect on what was, at 
10 
the time of the injury, a fetus.  Those decisions, however, do not stand for the proposition 
11 
that a defendant's negligence that directly causes a physical injury only or primarily to the 
12 
child during delivery was not actionable at common law.  Those decisions neither address 
13 
that issue nor provide a basis for saying that that class of cases was excepted from the 
14 
general rule that negligence and medical malpractice were recognized causes of action in 
15 
1857 for which a jury trial was available.19 
16 
 
 
We acknowledge, as we must, that neither party has cited any nineteenth-
17 
century case that addresses the specific question that this case presents, nor have we 
18 
                                              
 
19  
In holding that the common law would have recognized a cause of action 
for the injuries that Braedon sustained, we do not imply that, in 1857, the common law 
also would have recognized a cause of action for an infant who was stillborn or who died 
as a result of the defendant's actions.  See n 15 above.  That issue is not before us, and we 
express no opinion on it. 
32 
found any.  That is, we are not aware of any nineteenth-century case that discusses one 
1 
way or the other whether a child could maintain a cause of action for medical malpractice 
2 
for independent physical injuries that the child sustains during delivery as a direct 
3 
consequence of the defendant's acts or omissions.  Whatever the reason for that absence 
4 
of authority, our precedents require us to decide whether a cause of action for the injuries 
5 
Braedon sustained was recognized in 1857.  Faced with that question, we follow the 
6 
general principle that actions for medical malpractice and negligence were recognized in 
7 
1857 unless we are persuaded that an action comes within an exception to that rule.  For 
8 
the reasons explained above, we are not persuaded that the injuries that Braedon 
9 
sustained come within the exception that defendant has identified. 
10 
 
 
Having decided that question, we turn to our cases under Article I, section 
11 
17, to resolve this case.  In Lakin v. Senco Products Inc., 329 Or 62, 78, 987 P2d 463 
12 
(1999), the court held that applying a legislative cap to reduce a jury's determination of 
13 
noneconomic damages violates Article I, section 17, in "civil cases in which the right to 
14 
jury trial was customary in 1857."  Although the court has stated, since Lakin, that 
15 
"Article I, section 17, is not a source of law that creates or retains a substantive claim or a 
16 
theory of recovery in favor of any party," see Jensen v. Whitlow, 334 Or 412, 422, 51 P3d 
17 
599 (2002), we have adhered to Lakin's holding that: 
18 
"Article I, section 17, guarantees a jury trial in civil actions for which the 
19 
common law provided a jury trial when the Oregon Constitution was 
20 
adopted in 1857 and in cases of like nature.  In any such case, the trial of all 
21 
issues of fact must be by jury.  The determination of damages in a personal 
22 
injury case is a question of fact. * * * The legislature may not interfere with 
23 
the full effect of a jury's assessment of noneconomic damages, at least as to 
24 
civil cases in which the right to jury trial was customary in 1857[.]" 
25 
33 
329 Or at 82. 
1 
 
 
Because an action for medical malpractice is one for which "the right to 
2 
jury trial was customary in 1857," Article I, section 17, prohibits the legislature from 
3 
limiting the jury's determination of noneconomic damages.  See id.; see also Hughes, 344 
4 
Or at 156 (recognizing that Article I, section 17, prohibits the legislature from modifying 
5 
jury awards in actions that were recognized in 1857).  It follows that applying ORS 
6 
31.710(1) to the jury's damages award in this case violates that constitutional guarantee.  
7 
Having reached that conclusion, we need not address plaintiffs' arguments under Article 
8 
I, section 10, or Article VII (Amended), section 3.  Specifically, we need not decide 
9 
whether, under Howell v. Boyle, 353 Or 359, 298 P3d 1 (2013), the $500,000 limit on 
10 
noneconomic damages provided plaintiffs with a substantial remedy within the meaning 
11 
of Article I, section 10. 
12 
 
 
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed in part and affirmed in 
13 
part.  The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed. 
14 
1 
 
 
LANDAU, J., concurring. 
1 
 
 
The court's decision in this case turns on whether the common law in 1857 
2 
would have recognized plaintiff's claim.  I do not quarrel with that.  The sort of 
3 
imaginative reconstruction of nineteenth-century case law in which the court engages is 
4 
precisely what its precedents require.  My quarrel is with those precedents. 
5 
 
 
I am skeptical of those precedents in two respects.  First, at a more general 
6 
level, I contest the notion that this state's constitution today means no more than what it 
7 
meant in 1857.  That proposition is at the core of the controlling decisions in this case -- 
8 
Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 332 Or 83, 23 P3d 333 (2001), and Hughes v. 
9 
PeaceHealth, 344 Or 142, 178 P3d 225 (2008), in particular.  In my view, the sort of 
10 
hyper-originalism that those decisions both require and purport to reflect is untenable.  As 
11 
I argued in my concurring opinion in State v. Hemenway, 353 Or 129, 154, 295 P3d 617 
12 
(2013), vacated by State v. Hemenway, 353 Or 498, 302 P3d 413 (2013), there is little 
13 
evidence that the framers of the Oregon Constitution intended that their intentions or 
14 
understandings would be forever controlling.  Even assuming that the framers' intentions 
15 
or understandings are controlling, the fact remains that those intentions or understandings 
16 
are often unknowable or are unknown to us.  And even in those cases in which they are 
17 
known, it is often impossible to apply those intentions or understandings to modern 
18 
circumstances without transforming them in ways that would have been utterly foreign to 
19 
the framers. 
20 
 
 
Second, I have my doubts about the controlling decisions themselves.  That 
21 
is to say, even assuming for the sake of argument that the Oregon Constitution means 
22 
2 
only what it was intended to mean in 1857, I question whether the framers intended the 
1 
interpretations that this court adopted in Smothers and Hughes. 
2 
 
 
I begin with Smothers.  In that case, this court concluded that the exclusive 
3 
remedy provision of the state workers' compensation statute violated the remedy clause 
4 
of Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution.  In the view of the court, "the drafters 
5 
of Article I, section 10, sought to give constitutional protection to absolute rights 
6 
respecting person, property, and reputation as those rights were understood in 1857."  332 
7 
Or at 115.  The purpose of the remedy clause, the court stated, was to preserve from 
8 
legislative abolition rights that had become "vested" as of the time of the adoption of the 
9 
constitution.  Id. at 116. 
10 
 
 
The court acknowledged that direct evidence of what the framers of the 
11 
Oregon Constitution intended "admittedly is sketchy."  332 Or at 114.  In fact, the court 
12 
found no discussion of Article I, section 10, in the records of the constitutional 
13 
convention.20  The court nevertheless concluded that, by the mid-nineteenth century, 
14 
                                              
 
20  
The closest thing to direct evidence about the intended meaning of Oregon's 
remedy clause, the court explained, was the rewording of the clause -- without 
explanation -- from the Indiana provision on which it was based.  332 Or at 113-14.  
Article I, section 12, of the Indiana Constitution provided: 
 
"All courts shall be open; and every man, for injury done to him in 
his person, property, or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law.  
Justice shall be administered freely, and without purchase; completely, and 
without denial; speedily, and without delay." 
A committee on the Bill of Rights apparently reworked the phrasing so that Article I, 
section 10, of the Oregon Constitution provides: 
 
"No court shall be secret, but justice shall be administered, openly 
3 
there had developed a well-established understanding about what constitutional remedy 
1 
guarantees meant, and nothing in the historical record suggested that the framers of the 
2 
Oregon Constitution intended to depart from that understanding.  Id.     
3 
 
 
Based on that historical analysis, the court concluded that, to determine 
4 
whether a statute violates the remedy clause guarantee entails a two-part inquiry:  To 
5 
begin with, it must be determined, "when the drafters wrote the Oregon Constitution in 
6 
1857, did the common law of Oregon recognize a cause of action for the alleged injury?"  
7 
Id. at 124.  If the answer to that question is no, the inquiry is at an end.  If the answer is 
8 
yes, and the legislature has abolished that common-law claim, then "the second question 
9 
is whether [the legislature] has provided a constitutionally adequate remedy for the 
10 
common-law cause of action for that injury."  Id. 
11 
 
 
Applying that test to the exclusive remedy statute at issue, the court in 
12 
Smothers answered the first question in the affirmative -- that is, the court concluded that, 
13 
in 1857, the common law recognized a claim by an employee against an employer for 
14 
negligent injury during employment.  And it answered the second question in the 
15 
negative -- that is, the substitution of workers' compensation for common-law negligence 
16 
__________________ 
and without purchase, completely and without delay, and every man shall 
have remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, 
property, or reputation." 
The court found significant that the revised version "expressed in a separate, independent 
clause the guarantee of remedy by due course of law."  332 Or at 114.  Of course, the 
remedy guarantee was expressed in a separate, independent clause in the original Indiana 
version, as well.  The framers of the Oregon version simply moved the independent 
clause of the Indiana version to a different place in the sentence. 
4 
claims was constitutionally inadequate because the more rigorous causation standard that 
1 
applies to workers' compensation claims left some claims that would have been 
2 
compensable at common law beyond remedy.  Id. at 133-34. 
3 
 
 
The court's historical analysis is the focus of my concern.  It appears to me 
4 
that, in a number of important respects, the court's analysis in Smothers is difficult to 
5 
reconcile with the historical record. 
6 
 
 
In brief, the court in Smothers traced the origins of the remedy clause to 
7 
Magna Carta, as explained by Coke and Blackstone; as informed by the common-law 
8 
maxim ubi jus, ibi remedium (where there is a right, there must be a remedy); and as 
9 
taken up by nineteenth-century constitution framers who were hostile to legislative 
10 
authority.  332 Or at 94-112.  As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone agrees with the 
11 
initial proposition that state remedy clauses have their genesis in section 29 of the 1225 
12 
version of Magna Carta, which provides that,  
13 
"No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, 
14 
or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise 
15 
destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful 
16 
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.  We will sell to no man, we 
17 
will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right." 
18 
So far, so good. 
19 
 
 
The court gets into trouble, however, in its reading of Coke's commentary 
20 
on the final sentence of Chapter 29.  According to the Smothers court, "Coke asserted that 
21 
the common law of England had come to guarantee every subject a legal remedy for 
22 
injury to goods, lands, or person caused by any other subject."  332 Or at 96-97.  The 
23 
court cited no authority for that characterization of Coke's take on that portion of Magna 
24 
5 
Carta.  As far as I can tell, there is no authority for it. 
1 
 
 
What Coke was writing about was royal -- that is, the king's -- interference 
2 
with the judiciary.  David Schuman, The Right to a Remedy, 65 Temple L Rev 1197, 
3 
1200 (1992) ("At the time of Magna Carta, the evil was corrupt courts.").  The immediate 
4 
context within which Coke wrote his commentary bears out the point.  King James I, as 
5 
absolute monarch, had asserted the authority to appoint or remove judges at his pleasure 
6 
and to influence their decisions at will.  See generally William S. Holdsworth, 5 A 
7 
History of English Law 423-56 (1924) (on the conflict between the king and Coke 
8 
concerning crown control of the courts).  Coke asserted that the common law took 
9 
precedence over the authority of the king.21  In that context, he wrote in the Second 
10 
                                              
 
21  
As Holdsworth explained, the dispute between Coke and King James I was 
part of a larger one over the nature of sovereign power in post-Tudor England.  The 
courts "naturally magnified the royal prerogative on which they leaned and to which they 
owed their authority.  They therefore gravitated to the royalist view" of the state.  
Holdsworth, 5 A History of English Law at 423-24.  On the other hand, the medieval 
common-law view was that "the law was supreme, and the [royal] prerogative was 
therefore limited by it.  The common lawyers therefore gravitated to the parliamentary 
view that the prerogative was subject to definite legal limitations."  Id.  Coke was of the 
latter, parliamentary, view.  Id.  In Coke’s view, "the common law was the supreme law 
in the state, and the judges, unfettered and uncontrolled save by the law itself, were the 
sole exponents of this supreme law."  Id. at 428.  In James I’s view, "the judges were, like 
other civil servants, the officers of the crown.  The crown could therefore supersede them 
if necessary, and decide any matter for itself."  Id.; see also Catherine Drinker Bowen, 
The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke 294 (1956) (The king’s 
position -- articulated by Lord Chancellor Ellesmere and Archbishop Bancroft, 
respectively -- was "rex est lex loquens," that is, "the King is the law speaking." Judges 
were "lions, but yet lions under the throne, being circumspect that they do not check or 
oppose any points of sovereignty.").  James I asserted just that authority when, for 
example, he attempted to interfere with ongoing proceedings in the common-law courts.  
Holdsworth, 5 A History of English Law at 438-40.  Coke was ultimately dismissed from 
the bench over the controversy.  Meanwhile, James I and his successor, Charles I, 
continued to remove judges who refused to do the bidding of the crown.  See generally J. 
6 
Institutes that  
1 
"every subject of this realme, for injury done to him in bonis, terris vel 
2 
persona, by any other subject, be he ecclesiastical, or temporall, free, or 
3 
bond, man, or woman, old, or young, or be he outlawed, excommunicated, 
4 
or any other without exception, may take his remedy by the course of the 
5 
law, and have justice, and right for the injury done to him, freely without 
6 
sale, fully without any deniall, and speedily without delay." 
7 
Edward Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England 55 (1797).  The 
8 
quote responds to the abuses of the king, including the sale of justice, corrupt 
9 
appointments, and interference with judicial decisions.  See generally Jonathan M. 
10 
Hoffman, By the Course of the Law: The Origins of the Open Courts Clause of State 
11 
Constitutions, 74 Or L Rev 1279, 1288 (1995) ("Royal interference with the common-law 
12 
courts incited Sir Edward Coke's fight with the Crown and inspired his reinterpretation of 
13 
Magna Carta in his Second Institute.").  It was about who was entitled to justice from the 
14 
courts -- everyone, regardless of class or station -- and how remedies are to be 
15 
administered under law -- "freely without sale, fully without any deniall, and speedily 
16 
without delay."  Nothing in the historical context of Coke's Second Institutes suggests 
17 
that his point was that the courts were the guardians of a substantive right to remedy 
18 
against intrusions by Parliament.  To the contrary, corrupt courts were the problem for 
19 
Coke.  Smothers, in suggesting that Coke was about protecting against legislative 
20 
interference with common-law remedies, turns Coke on his head, transforming his 
21 
discussion about royal corruption of courts into a declaration of rights as against 
22 
parliamentary interference. 
23 
__________________ 
H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History 167 (4th ed 2002). 
7 
 
 
The court also runs into trouble in its appeal to Blackstone's Commentaries.  
1 
According to the court in Smothers,  
2 
 
"Blackstone explained that the common law viewed Englishmen as 
3 
having both absolute and relative rights. * * * Absolute rights are founded 
4 
on immutable laws of nature and reason, and usually are called liberties. 
5 
 
"* * * * * 
6 
 
"Blackstone echoed Coke in stating that it would be 'in vain' for the 
7 
law to recognize rights, if it were not for the remedial part of the law that 
8 
provides the methods for restoring those rights when they wrongfully are 
9 
withheld or invaded."   
10 
332 Or at 98-99 (citations omitted).   
11 
 
 
Once again, the court appears to have extracted quotations from their 
12 
context and summarized them to stand for something that would have been foreign to 
13 
their source.  Certainly, Blackstone spoke of absolute rights.  The entire first chapter of 
14 
Book I of his Commentaries concerns "the absolute rights of individuals."  William 
15 
Blackstone, 1 Commentaries *117.  But Blackstone viewed absolute rights as such only 
16 
in a state of nature.  Id. at *119 ("By the absolute rights of individuals we mean those 
17 
which are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to their persons 
18 
merely in a state of nature.").  He did not regard them as absolute in the sense of being 
19 
immune from change or limitation by the legislature.  See Albert W. Alschuler, 
20 
Rediscovering Blackstone, 145 U Pa L Rev 1, 28 (1996) (Blackstone did not "view rights 
21 
within political communities as 'absolute' in the sense that they were unqualified or 
22 
unrestricted."); Bradley J. Nicholson, A Sense of the Oregon Constitution 209 (2011) 
23 
(http://www.asenseoftheoregonconstitution.com) ("[D]espite Blackstone’s 
24 
8 
characterization of particular rights as 'absolute,' they always were subject to legislative 
1 
alteration."). 
2 
 
 
To the contrary, Blackstone explicitly stated that even so-called "absolute 
3 
rights" were subject to regulation by Parliament in the public interest.  See, e.g., Robert P. 
4 
Burns, Blackstone's Theory of the "Absolute" Rights of Property, 54 U Cinn L Rev 67, 73 
5 
(1985) (In Blackstone’s view, "absolute rights may be curtailed by necessary sacrifices, 
6 
imposed by positive law, for the blessings of civilized society."); Jeffrey D. Jackson, 
7 
Blackstone's Ninth Amendment: A Historical Common Law Baseline for the 
8 
Interpretation of Unenumerated Rights, 62 Okla L Rev 167, 208 (2010) (Absolute rights, 
9 
to Blackstone, "are not 'absolute' in all applications.  Rather, they are bound by 'the laws 
10 
of the land,' that is, by the valid laws enacted to protect and regulate society.").  In 
11 
Blackstone’s view, we relinquish some of our absolute rights when we become members 
12 
of a political community.  Blackstone, 1 Commentaries at *121 ("But every man, when 
13 
he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty.").  As a result, otherwise 
14 
absolute rights give way to laws that are "necessary and expedient for the general 
15 
advantage of the publick."  Id.  Thus, Blackstone cautions that, although the rights are 
16 
denominated "absolute," they are subject "at times to fluctuate and change: their 
17 
establishment (excellent as it is) being still human."  Id. at *123.  To Blackstone, the 
18 
common law was not frozen; rather, Parliament possessed authority to enlarge "the 
19 
common law where it was too narrow and circumscribed" and "restrain[] it where it was 
20 
too lax and luxuriant."  Id. at *86-87. 
21 
 
 
To say then, as Smothers does, that Blackstone asserted a common-law 
22 
9 
right to a remedy superior to legislative authority is quite at odds with what Blackstone 
1 
actually said.  See Thomas R. Phillips, The Constitutional Right to a Remedy, 78 NYUL 
2 
Rev 1309, 1323 (2003) ("Blackstone clearly saw the remedies guarantee only as a check 
3 
on royal and other 'private' abuses of power, not parliamentary excess."); Nicholson, A 
4 
Sense of the Oregon Constitution at 208 ("[C]onsistent with the scope of the 18th-century 
5 
doctrine of parliamentary supremacy, * * * Blackstone apparently believed that 
6 
parliament was more trustworthy than the judiciary."). 
7 
 
 
In a related vein, the court runs into further problems in invoking the hoary 
8 
ubi jus maxim.22  According to the Smothers court, "the purpose of the remedy clause is 
9 
to make the common-law maxim that there is no wrong without a remedy a 'fixed and 
10 
permanent rule in this state.'"  332 Or at 115.  As authority for that proposition, the court 
11 
cited its own decision in Platt v. Newberg et al., 104 Or 148, 153, 205 P 296 (1922), 
12 
which, in turn, cited the Corpus Juris Secundum, which simply stated that state remedy 
13 
clauses trace to Magna Carta.  In fact, I am aware of no support for the notion that state 
14 
remedy clauses were intended to effectuate the ancient ubi jus maxim. 
15 
 
 
It appears that the maxim had an entirely different purpose.  It was cited by 
16 
                                              
 
22  
Reference to the ubi jus maxim dates back at least to the early 18th century.  
The English decision in Ashby v. White, 92 Eng Rep 126 (1703), is often cited as the 
leading opinion.  Blackstone certainly discussed it.  Blackstone, 1 Commentaries at *55-
56.  It was also famously invoked in Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137, 163 (1803) 
("[W]here there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy by suit or action at law 
whenever that right is invaded.").  There has been some suggestion that Ashby v. White 
has been misunderstood, as a result of an eighteenth century publication mishap, and that 
the decision actually rejected the principle.  See Ted Sampsell-Jones, The Myth of Ashby 
v. White, 8 U St Thomas LJ 40, 40 (2010). 
10 
early common-law courts as authority for courts to create remedies where statutes proved 
1 
inadequate.  See generally Jonathan M. Hoffman, Questions Before Answers: The 
2 
Ongoing Search to Understand the Origins of the Open Courts Clause, 32 Rutgers LJ 
3 
1005, 1010 (2001) ("[W]hatever its source, the Maxim was historically applied to 
4 
effectuate legislative policy, not to thwart it." (Emphasis in original.)).  Thus, if statutes 
5 
did not provide a remedy for a given wrong, courts regarded themselves as empowered to 
6 
supply the needed remedy. That, at least, is how mid-nineteenth-century cases viewed the 
7 
maxim.  See, e.g., Stearns v. Atlantic & St L R Co, 46 Me 95, 102 (1858) ("But the 
8 
absence of all statutory remedy compels the plaintiff to rely upon common law authority 
9 
for bringing an 'action upon the case.'").  It was cited as authority for courts to add to the 
10 
legislature's exercise of its lawmaking authority.  I can find no authority for the 
11 
proposition that the maxim operated to prevent legislatures from exercising their 
12 
authority to modify or eliminate common-law remedies, which is another matter entirely. 
13 
 
 
The Smothers court encounters additional trouble in relying on the framers' 
14 
"mistrust of legislative power" as a basis for its reading of the remedy clause of Article I, 
15 
section 10.  To be sure, mid-nineteenth-century framers of state constitutions mistrusted 
16 
legislative power.  See generally Kermit L. Hall, The Magic Mirror:  Law in American 
17 
History 89, 103-05 (1989) ("The populist and antigovernmental stirrings of the late 1840s 
18 
and 1850s climaxed in an outburst of constitutional reform that diminished legislative 
19 
power.").  But that mistrust had specific focus in response to specific past abuses of 
20 
legislative power -- in particular, corruption in the legislative process and lack of 
21 
deliberation on the passage of laws, see generally Robert F. Williams, State 
22 
11 
Constitutional Limits on Legislative Procedure, reprinted in 48 U Pitt L Rev 797 (1987); 
1 
adoption of laws that transferred large swaths of land by fiat, see generally James Willard 
2 
Hurst, The Growth of American Law: The Law Makers 241-42 (1950); Mark A. Graber, 
3 
Naked Land Transfers and American Constitutional Development, 53 Vand L Rev 71 
4 
(2000); and other laws that granted special privileges and immunities to favored 
5 
individuals or businesses, see generally G. Alan Tarr and Robert F. Williams eds., State 
6 
Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century: The Agenda of State Constitutional Reform 21 
7 
(2006) ("A number of states include in their constitutions a curb on granting 'special' or 
8 
'exclusive' privileges, after a series of abuses by the relatively unfettered state legislatures 
9 
responding to powerful economic interests."); Kurt T. Lash, The Origins of the Privileges 
10 
or Immunities Clause, Part I: "Privileges and Immunities" as an Antebellum Term of Art, 
11 
98 Geo LJ 1241, 1253 (2010); David Schuman, The Right to "Equal Privileges and 
12 
Immunities": A State's Version of "Equal Protection," 13 Vt L Rev 221, 223 (1988).  
13 
Those abuses led to the adoption of enactment requirements that promoted openness and 
14 
deliberation, as well as prohibitions on local and special laws and other forms of 
15 
legislative favoritism. 23   
16 
                                              
 
23  
As Professor G. Alan Tarr explains in his leading treatise on state 
constitutions, beginning in the 1830s, state constitution makers imposed restrictions on 
legislatures, principally to address problems of corruption.  G. Alan Tarr, Understanding 
State Constitutions 118 (1998).  The constitutional limitations tended to focus on process, 
requiring supermajorities, multiple readings, title requirements, single-subject limitations, 
and the like.  Id. at 118-19.  Later, in the period from 1840-70, the focus shifted to 
legislative favoritism, resulting in requirements of equal taxation and bans on special 
corporation acts, among other things.  Id.  "Most restrictions," Tarr explains, "were 
designed to combat special privilege and the threat of corruption by forbidding legislators 
from enacting special or local laws in specific areas of public policy."  Id. at 120. 
12 
 
 
I have searched the historical record in vain for any suggestion that the 
1 
abuses of mid-nineteenth-century legislatures also included the enactment of laws that 
2 
encroached on common-law tort remedies.  Smothers certainly identified none.  That such 
3 
is the case, again, is understandable when the historical context is more fully taken into 
4 
account.  The mid-nineteenth century, after all, was no friend to those seeking recovery 
5 
for injury.  The law of negligence was in its infancy.  Lawrence Friedman, A History of 
6 
American Law 222 (3d ed 2005) (in the nineteenth century, "[n]egligence was the merest 
7 
dot on the law"); Morton J. Horowitz, The Transformation of American Law 1870-1960 
8 
85 (1977) ("One is surprised to learn how really late it was in the nineteenth century 
9 
before the action for negligence became a significant factor in American law.").24  The 
10 
law was dominated by doctrines that favored railroads and industry.  Under the prevailing 
11 
"fellow servant rule" and its cousin, assumption of risk, employees could almost never 
12 
sue their employers for workplace injuries.25  Contributory negligence precluded 
13 
                                              
 
24  
The first treatise on the subject of torts did not appear until 1859.  Francis 
Hilliard, The Law of Torts or Private Wrongs (1859) (the first printed text on torts).  As 
late as the 1870s, Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked that torts "is not a proper subject for 
a law book," as it simply amounted to a collection of unrelated writs.  O. W. Holmes, 
Book Notice, 5 Am L Rev 340, 341 (1871).  As Professor G. Edward White noted in his 
leading treatise on the history of the development of tort law in this country, "[t]he 
emergence of Torts as an independent branch of law came strikingly late in American 
legal history."  G. Edward White, Tort Law in America: An Intellectual History 3 (2003).  
Torts, he explained "was not considered a discrete branch of law until the late nineteenth 
century."  Id. 
 
25 
Courts held that risks resulting from a dangerous place of employment were 
incident to employment and addressed in the worker's rate of pay.  An employee could 
sue an employer only for the employer's personal misconduct, which, given the realities 
of nineteenth-century industrial organization, made that possibility essentially 
meaningless.  See generally Lawrence M. Friedman and Jack Ladinsky, Social Change 
13 
recovery if a plaintiff were at fault in the slightest way.  See Lawson v. Hoke, 339 Or 253, 
1 
262, 119 P3d 210 (2005) (noting "the indisputable proposition that, in the early years of 
2 
this state's history, a plaintiff's contributory negligence was an absolute bar to recovery 
3 
for the negligent acts of another").  The "spirit of the age," as Friedman put it, "was a 
4 
spirit of limits on recovery."  A History of American Law at 352.  And those limits on 
5 
recovery "[a]ll had either been invented or refined by the judges themselves."  Id. at 
6 
__________________ 
and the Law of Industrial Accidents, 67 Colum L Rev 50, 53 (1967) ("An employee 
retained the right to sue the employer for injuries, provided they were caused by the 
employer's personal misconduct.  But the factory system and corporate ownership of 
industry made this right virtually meaningless.").  
 
 
The law was famously described by Chief Justice Shaw in Farwell v. 
Boston & W. R. Corp., 45 Mass 49, 59-60 (Mass 1842), in which he explained that, "[t]he 
general rule, resulting from considerations as well of justice as of policy, is, that he who 
engages in the employment of another for the performance of specified duties and 
services, for compensation, takes upon himself the natural and ordinary risks and perils 
incident to the performance of such services, and in legal presumption, the compensation 
is adjusted accordingly."  See also Comment, The Creation of a Common Law Rule: The 
Fellow Servant Rule, 1837-1860, 132 U Pa L Rev 579, 590-95 (1984) (describing 
Farwell and its rapid adoption by most courts). 
 
 
Some courts adopted exceptions to the rules barring negligence claims 
against employers.  For example, courts created an exception for employers who supplied 
faulty tools, see, e.g., Flike v. Boston & A.R. Co., 16 Am Negl Cas 765 (NY 1873) ("The 
master is liable if his own negligence or want of care produces the injury, and this may be 
manifested by * * * furnishing improper or unsafe machinery, implements, facilities or 
materials for the use of the servant."), and another, known as the "vice-principal 
exception," that applied to certain supervisory employees whose responsibilities were 
such that the courts regarded them as, in effect, the employee, see, e.g., Berea Stone Co. 
v. Kraft, 31 Ohio St 287, 291-92 (1877) (The fellow servant rule, "has no application 
where the servant by whose negligent conduct or act the injury is inflicted, sustains the 
relation of superior in authority to the one receiving the injury.").  But such exceptions 
did not arise until later, in most cases, years after the adoption of the Oregon 
Constitution.  See generally Peter Karsten, Heart versus Head: Judge-Made Law in 
Nineteenth-Century America 122-124 (1997) (describing adoption of various exceptions 
to fellow-servant rule from 1860s to 1880s). 
14 
356.26 
1 
                                              
 
26  
For that reason, it is especially difficult to understand the court's application 
of its new interpretation of the remedy guarantee to the question whether the common 
law in 1857 recognized negligence claims by employees against employers.  The court in 
Smothers declared that, "in 1857, the common law of Oregon would have recognized that 
a worker had a cause of action for negligence against his employer for failing to provide a 
safe workplace."  332 Or at 131.  Yet the court found not a single antebellum case to 
support that proposition. 
 
 
That is hardly surprising, given the state of the law at the time.  As I 
mentioned, it was all but impossible to recover against an employer for injuries 
negligently inflicted in the workplace.  How, then, could Smothers conclude that "in 
1857, the common law of Oregon would have recognized that a worker had a cause of 
action for negligence against his employer for failing to provide a safe workplace"?  332 
Or at 131.  In brief, the court cited several cases from the 1870s and 1880s that 
recognized exceptions to the rule of nonliability, without acknowledging the rule itself. 
 
 
For example, the court relied heavily on an 1880 United States Supreme 
Court decision, Hough v. Texas and Pacific R.R. Co, 100 US 213, 25 L Ed 612 (1879), 
which it said recognized a "firmly established" rule that employers were obligated by law 
to provide a safe workplace.  332 Or at 129-30.  A careful reading of Hough, however, 
reveals a different picture.  In that case, the United States Supreme Court expressly 
recognized "the general rule exempting the common master from liability to one servant 
for injuries caused by the negligence of a fellow-servant in the same employment."  100 
US at 215.  The Court quoted extensively from Chief Justice Shaw's opinion in Farwell 
and commented that, "[a]s to the general rule, very little conflict of opinion is to be found 
in the adjudged cases."  Id. at 216.  Indeed, the Court said, "the general doctrine, as stated 
by Chief Justice Shaw, is sustained by elementary writers of high authority, and by 
numerous adjudications of the American and English courts."  Id.  The Court then went 
on to note a recently recognized exception to the general rule, that employers were 
obliged to "provid[e] the servant with machinery or other instrumentalities adequately 
safe" for use in the workplace.  Id. at 217.  This is precisely one of the exceptions that I 
mentioned above, exceptions that were not adopted until the 1860s and 1870s. 
 
 
In similar fashion, the court in Smothers quoted Anderson v. Bennett, 16 Or 
515, 19 P 765 (1888), as holding that "an employer, and the employer's representatives, 
have a duty 'to use reasonable care and diligence and [to] make reasonable provision for 
the servant's safety.'"  332 Or at 131 (quoting Anderson, 16 Or at 532).  The court 
conceded that Anderson was decided more than 30 years after the adoption of the 
constitution, but it regarded the decision as controlling nonetheless, because "nothing in 
the court's opinion in that case suggested that the holding was novel or that the decision 
15 
 
 
In that context, I have to wonder where the idea originated that the framers 
1 
wanted judges to act as restraints on legislative abrogation of common-law remedies.  
2 
The robust common-law remedies with which we are so familiar today barely existed at 
3 
the time, and it was the judges who were adopting constraints on them. 
4 
 
 
The problems with Smothers that I have described do not appear to be mere 
5 
__________________ 
marked a departure from any previous decisions or jurisprudence on the subject."  332 Or 
at 131.  That appears to be incorrect. 
 
 
The court in Anderson actually began its analysis by acknowledging the 
general rule and rationale from Shaw’s Farwell decision:  "The general doctrine that a 
master is not liable for the injuries caused by the negligence of a fellow-servant engaged 
in the same common employment is now regarded as part of the common law of this 
land."   16 Or at 520.  But, after acknowledging the general rule, the court explained that 
more recent decisions have retreated from that harsh rule in the interests of justice: 
"But in the progress of society since the decision in Farwell v. Railroad Co. 
such has been the increase in the number and magnitude of the business 
operations of the country, the great army of servants required to be 
employed to perform their work, and the necessity of placing over them, 
and in charge of these vast operations, other servants to direct and control 
their labor, that there has been wrought in the judicial mind the conviction 
that the general application of that rule in such cases has often worked 
manifest injustice and hardship.  So that the later current of judicial 
decision * * * indicates a marked departure from that rule, and a 
disposition to so limit and restrict it as shall make the master answerable for 
his just share of responsibility to his servant for injuries sustained in his 
employment."   
16 Or at 522 (emphasis added).  In that context, the court then recognized the 
development of the vice-principal exception to the fellow-servant rule and the obligation 
of the employer to furnish a safe place of employment.  Id. at 528. 
 
 
Thus, in both cases, it appears that Smothers failed to acknowledge what 
the authorities it cited actually said about the general rule of nonliability of employers 
and instead quoted from what those authorities identified as exceptions to that general 
rule -- exceptions that were not widely recognized until after the adoption of the Oregon 
Constitution. 
16 
disagreements about subtle issues of historical interpretation that are of idle academic 
1 
interest.  Recall that the court in Smothers acknowledged an absence of direct evidence of 
2 
what the Oregon framers intended the remedy clause to mean.  The linchpin of its 
3 
decision was its construction of a settled understanding of what remedy clauses meant to 
4 
mid-nineteenth-century framers.  The court then read the silence of the record as to the 
5 
particular intentions of the Oregon framers as, in effect, acquiescence in that settled 
6 
understanding.  332 Or at 114 ("[W]e find no indication that the drafters sought to depart 
7 
from the historical purpose of remedy clauses."). 
8 
 
 
The problem is that the court did not make its case for a settled 
9 
understanding of state remedy clauses.  The matter is, at best, debatable.  Indeed, what 
10 
scholarship on the subject exists suggests an absence of any consensus about what state 
11 
remedy clauses were intended to mean.  See, e.g., Hoffman, 74 Or L Rev at 1281 
12 
("Research published to date reveals little more than that the provision comes from 
13 
Magna Carta Chapter 40, as viewed through the lens of Sir Edward Coke's Second 
14 
Institute.").27  And, bearing out that very point, courts in states whose constitutions 
15 
                                              
 
27  
There is little in the way of scholarship about the historical origins of 
remedy clauses.  But, even within that small universe of scholarship, there is much 
disagreement.  A number of authors take the position that the clauses were intended only 
to secure an independent, accessible judiciary.  See, e.g., Nicholson, A Sense of the 
Oregon Constitution at 194 (Article I, section 10, was intended "to provide every person 
with access to the courts to resolve private disputes, but does not guarantee a recovery or 
require that any particular rules of law shall apply."); Hoffman, 74 Or at 1318 ("Modern 
cases and commentaries interpreting this clause * * * to forbid legislatures from 
modifying or eliminating existing remedies through duly enacted legislation[] are simply 
not consistent with the original purpose of the clause."); Daniel W. Halston, The Meaning 
of the Massachusetts "Open Courts" Clause and Its Relevance to the Current Court 
Crisis, 88 n 3 Mass L Rev 122, 130 (2004) ("there is ample evidence that the clause, once 
17 
include remedy guarantees are divided about what the guarantees actually mean.  Jennifer 
1 
Friesen, State Constitutional Law: Litigating Individual Rights, Claims and Defenses § 
2 
6.02[3] at 6-9 (4th ed 2006) ("[S]tate court decisions divide sharply on the central issue 
3 
of whether (and how) these clauses do limit legislative attempts to alter remedies 
4 
available under the common law."). 
5 
 
 
Aside from the fact that Smothers appears to rest on a shaky historical 
6 
foundation, the decision does not appear to be working very well on its own terms, as our 
7 
recent, sharply divided cases make clear.  See, e.g., Howell v. Boyle, 353 Or 359, 298 P3d 
8 
1 (2013).  This court, in fact, appears to have trouble even identifying -- and agreeing 
9 
about -- what Smothers held.  In Lawson, for example, the court concluded that, because 
10 
the plaintiff's negligence claim was subject to various defenses at common law, it was not 
11 
the sort of "absolute common-law right" that the remedy clause protects, 339 Or at 264-
12 
65.  The court used the term "absolute" quite differently from the way Smothers used it 
13 
__________________ 
placed in historical context, was actually intended to create and protect an independent 
judiciary"); Phillips, The Constitutional Right to a Remedy, 78 NYUL Rev at 1309 
(same).  Others suggest -- in my view, without much in the way of explanation -- that the 
clauses were intended to limit legislative authority.  See, e.g., Comment, The Kansas 
Remedy by Due Course of Law Provision: Defining a Right to a Remedy, 47 U Kan L 
Rev 655, 659 (1999) (the use of remedy clauses "to curtail legislative power remains true 
to the historical spirit of the provision as a means of preserving the common law"); 
William C. Koch, Jr., Reopening Tennessee’s Open Courts Clause: A Historical 
Reconsideration of Article I, section 17 of the Tennessee Constitution, 27 U Mem L Rev 
333, 450 (state remedy clause limits legislative authority to abolish common-law 
remedies).  Still others take a sort of middle position.  Schuman, 65 Temple L Rev at 
1224-25.  And still others suggest that there may be a constitutional right to a remedy, but 
only under a state or federal due process clause.  See, e.g., Tracy A. Thomas, Restriction 
of Tort Remedies and the Constraints of Due Process: The Right to an Adequate Remedy, 
39 Akron L Rev 975 (2006). 
18 
and, in the process, significantly muddied the waters in this area of the law. 
1 
 
 
The difficulty is that Smothers explicitly holds that the scope of the remedy 
2 
clause is limited to protecting common-law rights that vested in 1857.  That is 
3 
problematic in at least several ways.  
4 
 
 
First, if Smothers constitutionally protects claims that existed in 1857, it 
5 
would seem to follow that its protection extends to some that can only be regarded as 
6 
quaint artifacts of a time long gone by.  For example, if Smothers means what it says, I do 
7 
not understand how the legislature had the constitutional authority to eliminate a 
8 
husband's common-law liability for the torts of his wife or such claims as the tort of 
9 
alienation of affection.  It should not be forgotten that, at the time of the adoption of the 
10 
Oregon Constitution, women had limited legal rights, and some persons of color had 
11 
none at all. 
12 
 
 
Second, if the remedy clause protects only those claims that "vested" in 
13 
1857, that turns out to be not much of a guarantee, given the state of the common law at 
14 
that time.  For example, as this court noted in Howell, at the time of the adoption of the 
15 
Oregon Constitution, a plaintiff could not state a claim for negligence without 
16 
affirmatively establishing a complete absence of contributory negligence.  353 Or at 382-
17 
85.  The doctrine was not treated as a defense in this state until the mid-1880s.  See Grant 
18 
v. Baker, 12 Or 329, 332-33, 7 P 318 (1885) (first decision to treat contributory 
19 
negligence as an affirmative defense).  It would seem to follow that the remedy clause 
20 
affords no relief to any twenty-first century plaintiff who was at fault in the slightest way. 
21 
 
 
Third, there is the unavoidable problem of determining the proper level of 
22 
19 
generality with which to describe and analyze claims that may have existed at common 
1 
law in 1857.  For example, in Lawson, a motorist who was injured in a collision with 
2 
another motorist argued that a statutory limitation on noneconomic damages when the 
3 
injured party did not have automobile liability insurance violated her right to a remedy 
4 
under Article I, section 10, because the statute abrogated claims for negligence, which 
5 
clearly existed in 1857.  The defendant argued that the remedy clause did not apply under 
6 
Smothers, because claims for injury arising out of automobile accidents were not 
7 
recognized in the mid-nineteenth century, automobiles not having been invented at the 
8 
time.  The plaintiff rejoined that, although automobiles had not yet been invented, 
9 
Conestoga wagons had been, and the law would have recognized injuries arising out of 
10 
such transportation-related accidents.  This court ultimately held that neither party was 
11 
correct and that the key determinant to the question whether the framers would have 
12 
recognized a claim for the plaintiff's injuries in 1857 was the fact that she had failed to 
13 
comply with the law that required her to obtain liability insurance.  339 Or at 260.  It 
14 
strikes me that there is no way to determine whether the remedy clause actually applies 
15 
until this court identifies the proper level of generality with which to describe the nature 
16 
of the claims that the common law in 1857 would or would not have recognized, and 
17 
nothing in Smothers or any other case of which I am aware provides a principle of law 
18 
that enables the bench and bar to predict what that proper level of generality is. 
19 
 
 
In that regard, it is worth noting that it is plaintiff in this case who suggests 
20 
that we should depart from the rigid historical focus of Smothers and broaden the 
21 
guarantee beyond those rights that existed in 1857.  That simply will not work, however, 
22 
20 
at least not without completely rethinking the interpretation of the remedy clause.  
1 
Smothers cannot just be tweaked as plaintiff suggests.  Its very rationale is that certain 
2 
rights vested at a point in time.  332 Or at 116 (under the remedy clause, "[v]ested rights 
3 
are placed under constitutional protection, and cannot be destroyed by legislation." 
4 
(quoting Templeton v. Linn County, 22 Or 313, 318, 29 P 795 (1892)).  It is explicitly 
5 
historical.28 
6 
 
 
My own view is that it is unlikely that the framers intended the remedy 
7 
clause to serve as a limitation on legislative authority, certainly not one that essentially 
8 
freezes the guarantee to preserve mid-nineteenth-century tort law.  See generally Brewer 
9 
v. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, 167 Or App 173, 191-98, 2 P3d 418 (2000) (Landau, J., 
10 
concurring).  I am inclined to agree with what appears to be the majority of other state 
11 
courts that have addressed the issue, which conclude that state remedy clauses are 
12 
                                              
 
28  
That is not based on a stray or incidental quote from the court's opinion.  In 
Smothers the court stated nearly a dozen times that the drafters "sought to give 
constitutional protection to absolute rights respecting person, property, and reputation as 
those rights were understood in 1857," 332 Or at 115 (emphasis added), or similar 
phrasing.  See also, e.g., id. at 116 ("the purpose of the remedy clause 'is to save from 
legislative abolishment those jural rights which had become well established prior to the 
enactment of our Constitution.'" (quoting Stewart v. Houk et al., 127 Or 589, 591, 271 P 
998 (1928)); id. at 118 ("As we have explained, the history of the remedy clause indicates 
that its purpose is to protect absolute common-law rights respecting person, property, and 
reputation as those rights existed when the Oregon Constitution was drafted in 1857."); 
id. at 123 ("Article I, section 10, protects rights respecting person, property, and 
reputation that, in 1857, the common law regarded as 'absolute.'"); id. at 124 (remedy 
clause preserves claims for "injury," defined as "a wrong or harm for which a cause of 
action existed when the drafters wrote the Oregon Constitution in 1857").  It was, in fact, 
explicitly the basis for this court's holding in prior cases that certain modern claims are 
not subject to the remedy guarantee of Article I, section 10.  See Hughes, 344 Or at 151-
52 (remedy clause does not apply to claims for wrongful death, because such claims were 
not recognized at the time of the adoption of the Oregon Constitution). 
21 
addressed to the courts, not the legislature, and that -- consistently with mid-nineteenth-
1 
century antipathy to favoritism -- its target is the accessibility of the courts by all, without 
2 
discrimination.29 
3 
 
 
But I make no claim that that view reflects anything close to settled law or 
4 
history.  Moreover, that view presupposes that the framers' intentions are controlling in 
5 
                                              
 
29  
See, e.g., O’Quinn v. Walt Disney Productions., Inc., 177 Colo 190, 195, 
493 P2d 344 (Colo 1972) (remedy clause "simply provides that if a right does accrue 
under the law, the courts will be available to effectuate such right"); Hawley v. Green, 
117 Idaho 498, 500-01, 788 P2d 1321 (Idaho 1990) (remedy clause "merely admonishes 
the Idaho courts to dispense justice and to secure citizens the rights and remedies 
afforded by the legislature or by the common law"); Smith v. Indiana Dept. of Correction, 
883 NE 2d 802, 808 (Ind 2008) ("the Open Courts Clause does not prevent the legislature 
from modifying or restricting common law rights and remedies"); Crier v. Whitecloud, 
496 So 2d 305, 309-10 (La 1986) ("From this history [of the state open courts clause] we 
conclude that * * * the Constitutional Convention did not intend to limit the legislature's 
ability to restrict causes of action or to bar the legislature from creating various areas of 
statutory immunity from suit. * * * The constitutional guarantee providing for open 
courts and insuring a remedy for injuries does not warrant a remedy for every single 
injury."); Meech v. Hillhaven West, Inc., 238 Mont 21, 30, 776 P2d 488, 493 (Mont 1989) 
("The history of the guarantee indicates that framers of state constitutions inserted 
remedy clauses to insure equal administration of justice.  Clauses insuring equal 
administration of justice are aimed at the judiciary, not the legislature."); Lamb v. 
Wedgewood South Corp., 308 NC 419, 444, 302 SE2d 868 (NC 1983) ("the remedy 
constitutionally guaranteed must be one that is legally cognizable. The legislature has the 
power to define the circumstances under which a remedy is legally cognizable and those 
under which it is not."); Andrews v. O'Hearn, 387 NW2d 716, 723 (ND 1986) ("[o]ur 
research shows that [the open courts clause of the state constitution] has been repeatedly 
construed as a guarantee of access to our State system of justice"); Singer v. Sheppard, 
464 Pa 387, 400, 346 A2d 897 (1975) ("nothing in [the state constitution] prevents the 
legislature from extinguishing a cause of action");  Nash v. Baker, 522 P2d 1335, 1338 
(Okl App 1974) (state open courts clause "does not promise a remedy to every 
complainant[;] * * * [i]t does not prevent the Legislature from creating new legal rights 
* * * or from increasing or reducing or changing the scope of such a right or the remedy 
for its violation"); Quesnel v. Town of Middlebury, 167 Vt 252, 258, 706 A2d 436, 439 
(1997) (state open courts clause "does not create substantive rights[,] * * * it merely 
provides access to the courts"). 
22 
the first place -- a position that, as I have said, I contest.  At this point, I am less invested 
1 
in a particular interpretation of the clause than I am in having the matter served up for 
2 
proper argument and reexamination. 
3 
 
 
I have similar reservations about Hughes, especially with respect to its 
4 
incorporation of Smothers-type analysis into the interpretation and application of the right 
5 
to a jury trial guaranteed by Article I, section 17, of the Oregon Constitution.  At issue in 
6 
Hughes was the constitutionality of a statutory limit on noneconomic damages in a 
7 
wrongful death action.  The plaintiff argued that the cap, among other things, violated her 
8 
right to a remedy under Article I, section 10, and her right to a jury trial under Article I, 
9 
section 17.  As to the remedy clause claim, the court diligently applied Smothers and 
10 
concluded that the remedy clause did not apply to wrongful death claims, because neither 
11 
the common law nor the Oregon legislature recognized such claims until at least five 
12 
years after the adoption of the state constitution.  344 Or at 146-52.  Turning to the jury 
13 
clause claim, the court similarly concluded that the plaintiff could not prevail "[b]ecause 
14 
the common law does not, and did not in 1857, recognize a right to unlimited damages in 
15 
wrongful death actions."  Id. at 156-57. 
16 
 
 
Article I, section 17, provides that, "[i]n all civil cases the right of Trial by 
17 
Jury shall remain inviolate."  By its terms, it applies to "all civil cases," not just the 
18 
limited number of civil cases that would have triggered a right to a jury trial in 1857.  
19 
And I am aware of no evidence in the historical record that the framers of the provision 
20 
intended or contemplated that the constitutional guarantee would be so limited.   
21 
 
 
In fact, our more recent case law rejects just such a reading of Article I, 
22 
23 
section 17.  In Foster v. Miramontes, 352 Or 401, 287 P3d 1045 (2012), we expressly 
1 
rejected the notion that the right to a jury trial is limited to claims that existed at common 
2 
law at the time of the framing of the constitution.  To the contrary, we held that the 
3 
guarantee applies to all "claims or requests that are properly categorized as 'civil' or 'at 
4 
law.'"  Id. at 425.  Only if a claim, standing alone, is "equitable in nature and would have 
5 
been tried to a court without a jury at common law," does the guarantee not apply.  Id.  
6 
 
 
Obviously, there is some tension between what this court said and did in 
7 
Hughes and what we said and did in Foster. 
8 
 
 
It strikes me that there are two possible ways to resolve that tension.  First, 
9 
we could conclude that Foster -- which did not expressly address the matter -- implicitly 
10 
overruled Hughes.  Second, we could conclude that Foster did not need to overrule 
11 
Hughes, because Hughes and its Smothers-like analysis apply to only a particular aspect 
12 
of the right to a jury trial, namely, a right to the benefit of the jury's decision itself 
13 
without any statutory limitations, and does not apply to the broader question whether 
14 
there is a right to have the jury make the decision in the first place. 
15 
 
 
In my own view, only the former possibility is tenable.  I do not understand 
16 
how the right to a jury trial can be parsed out into subsidiary rights, one of which requires 
17 
Smothers-like historical analysis and the other that does not.  Either there is a right to a 
18 
jury trial, or there is not.  Plain and simple. 
19 
 
 
It could be inferred that the court implicitly adopts the second of the two 
20 
possibilities in this case, given that it has engaged in the historical analysis that Smothers 
21 
and Hughes require in deciding the matter under Article I, section 17.  I think the 
22 
24 
inference would be erroneous, however.  As the court notes, neither party asks us to 
1 
overrule Hughes.  Moreover, because the court concludes that plaintiff's claims would 
2 
have been recognized at common law, it simply does not need to address whether such 
3 
analysis is required.  Still, the issue is an important one, and deserves to be addressed in 
4 
an appropriate future case. 
5 
 
 
I do not argue that we should address all of these issues in this case.  
6 
Although I would not go so far as to say that we are incapable of reconsidering earlier 
7 
decisions without a request from one or more parties, I nevertheless recognize that 
8 
questions such as the ones that I have posed are difficult and complex and that the court, 
9 
in attempting to address them, would benefit from the sort of research and argument that 
10 
the adversarial process provides.  Careful and vigorous advocacy may reveal that I am 
11 
mistaken in my critique of Smothers and Hughes.  Or not.  Either way, before we apply 
12 
those decisions in future cases, we should invite such advocacy to address the issues that 
13 
I have raised. 
14