Title: Atiyeh v. State of Oregon

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Filed:  March 26, 1998

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

VICTOR ATIYEH, VERA KATZ,
BERKELEY LENT, ELLEN LOWE,
FRED MILLER, BETTY ROBERTS,
HERBERT M. SCHWAB, ROBERT
STRAUB, R.G. ANDERSON-WYCKOFF,
OREGON SCHOOL EMPLOYEES 
ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS,
LOCAL 1660, CITY OF EUGENE,
and LEAGUE OF OREGON CITIES,

	Respondents,

	v.

STATE OF OREGON and PHIL
KEISLING, Secretary of State,

	Appellants	.

(CC 16-95-00123; CA A90030; SC S42467)

	On certification from the Court of Appeals pursuant to
Oregon Laws 1995, chapter 284.*

	Argued and submitted November 6, 1997.

	Rives Kistler, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the
cause and filed the briefs for appellants.  With him on the
briefs were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Virginia L.
Linder, Solicitor General.

	William F. Gary, of Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, PC, Eugene,
argued the cause and filed the brief for respondents.  With him
on the brief was Brendan Dunn.

	Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Van Hoomissen,
Graber, and Durham, Justices.** 

	GILLETTE. J.

	The supplemental judgment of the circuit court awarding
attorney fees is reversed. 

	*Appeal from a supplemental judgment of the Lane County 	 Circuit Court, Jack L. Mattison, Judge.

    **Fadeley, J., retired January 31, 1998, and did not
participate in this decision; Kulongoski, J., did not participate
in the consideration or decision of this case.

		GILLETTE, J.

		This is a case in which the sole issue before us is the
propriety of a trial court's award of attorney fees to
plaintiffs.  The award was made under the trial court's inherent
equitable authority, as described by this court in Deras v.
Myers, 272 Or 47, 535 P2d 541 (1975).  We hold that, under the 
procedural circumstances present here, the award was
inappropriate.  We therefore reverse it.
	
This case began as a declaratory judgment proceeding in
the circuit court.  In that proceeding, plaintiffs, a group of
private citizens, present and former public officials, public
employee unions, and municipalities, challenged the
constitutionality of an initiative measure that had been approved
by the people.(1)  Plaintiffs sought a declaration that the
measure, Ballot Measure 8 ("Measure 8"), was unconstitutional in
one or more of the following particulars: (1) the measure
violated the federal Guarantee Clause;(2) (2) the measure violated
Article XVII, section 2, of the Oregon Constitution, because it
was a revision, rather than an amendment, to the Oregon
Constitution and was not approved by two-thirds of the
legislature before it was submitted to the electors;(3) (3) even if
it were an amendment, the measure was an impermissible one,
because it enshrined an ordinary legislative matter into the
Oregon Constitution; and (4) the Secretary of State had a duty to
review initiated measures before they were submitted to the
people to determine if the measures complied with the Guarantee
Clause or constituted impermissible "legislative" amendments. 
Plaintiffs' complaint also included a request for attorney fees
under the authority of Deras.

		On cross-motions for summary judgment, the circuit
court entered judgment for plaintiffs on their second and third
claims for relief:  It issued a declaration that Measure 8 was
not validly enacted because it revised, rather than amended, the
Oregon Constitution and because it sought "to enshrine ordinary
laws into the constitution."  The court entered summary judgment
for the state on plaintiffs' first and fourth claims:  It
declared that the Guarantee Clause claim was not justiciable, and
it dismissed plaintiffs' claim that pre-enactment review of
proposed initiative measures by the Secretary of State for
certain issues was constitutionally required.  Both sides
appealed to this court from the ensuing judgment.(4)

		After the circuit court had issued its judgment on the
merits, in a timely manner, plaintiffs filed a request for
$67,132.19 in attorney fees.  Over the state's objection, the
circuit court entered a supplemental judgment awarding the fees
that plaintiffs had requested.  The state appealed that
supplemental judgment, an appeal that the Court of Appeals again
certified to this court.  We held that appeal in abeyance until
it was possible to resolve the merits of the underlying claims.

		On September 26, 1996, this court dismissed the
parties' appeals on the merits in this case as moot.  Atiyeh v.
State of Oregon, 323 Or 413, 414, 918 P2d 795 (1996) (memorandum
opinion).  That disposition was based on the court's conclusion
that the issues had been mooted by the court's decision in Oregon
State Police Officers' Assn. v. State of Oregon, 323 Or 356, 918
P2d 765 (1996), which had invalidated Measure 8 on grounds other
than those advanced by plaintiffs here.(5)  The state's appeal of
the award of attorney fees then was briefed and argued.

		On appeal, the state argues two points.  It argues,
first, that the court should have made no award of attorney fees. 
Second, it argues that, even assuming that some award of attorney
fees was justified, the amount awarded in this case was not the
appropriate amount.  For the reasons that follow, we agree with
the state's first argument.  We therefore do not reach the second
argument.

		Ordinarily, "American courts will not award attorney's
fees to the prevailing party[(6)] absent authorization of statute
or contract."  Mattiza v. Foster, 311 Or 1, 4, 803 P2d 723 (1990)
(quoting Deras, 272 Or at 65-66).  No statutory or contractual
authorization exists here.  This court nonetheless has recognized
an exception to the foregoing rule:  Courts retain the inherent,
equitable power to award to the prevailing party attorney fees in
appropriate circumstances.  See, e.g., Dennehy v. City of
Gresham, 314 Or 600, 602, 841 P2d 633 (1992); Deras, 272 Or at
66. 

		In Deras, the plaintiff challenged statutes that sought
to limit campaign expenditures by candidates for public office. 
The court held those statutes unconstitutional and awarded the
plaintiff attorney fees under its equitable powers.  The court
noted that its power so to award fees generally is "exercised in
cases where the plaintiff brings suit in a representative
capacity and succeeds in protecting the rights of others as much
as his own."  272 Or at 66.  There, the award was justified
because of the nature of the litigation's benefit -- the
"preservation of the individual liberties guaranteed against
governmental infringement of the constitution" -- and because the
benefit flowed equally to other members of the public as well as
to the plaintiff.  Ibid.

		Deras in turn relied on the court's opinion in Gilbert
v. Hoisting & Port. Engrs., 237 Or 130, 384 P2d 136 (1963), 390
P2d 320 (1964), where the court awarded attorney fees to members
of a union who had prevailed in a suit to require their union to
perform its internal duties in a legal and democratic manner. 
The court held that the power to award fees was inherent in the
court's power to do equity, 237 Or at 137, 141, and explained:

	"The elimination of improper practices in union affairs
benefits not only the plaintiff who initiates the suit
but also inures to the members of the union and the
public as well.  The cost of employing counsel should
not be visited upon the persons who bring the suit and
prevail."  Id. at 141.  

		The foregoing cases establish that, as a requirement
for the award of attorney fees in cases of this kind, the
prevailing party must have succeeded in "protecting the rights of
others as much as his own."  Deras, 272 Or at 66.  That
requirement is not satisfied here.  Plaintiffs' victory in the
trial court confirmed their status as prevailing parties, but
that is all that it did.  This court's dismissal of the appeal on
the ground of mootness left the trial court's judgment in place,
but it also prevented the state from seeking a determination that
the trial court's concededly moot decision was incorrect on the
merits.  Under those circumstances, it would be inequitable to
permit the award of attorney fees to stand.  Plaintiffs prevailed
but, because the state's appeal was cut short by mootness, we
cannot conclude that the judgment actually protects the rights of
anyone.  Plaintiffs' degree of success falls short of the showing
required by Deras and Gilbert.  The trial court's decision to
award attorney fees must be reversed.

		The supplemental judgment of the circuit court awarding
attorney fees is reversed. 

1. 	Ballot Measure 8 was approved by the voters at the
November 8, 1994, general election.  It became effective on
December 8, 1994.

2. 	The Guarantee Clause -- Article IV, section 4, of the
United States Constitution -- provides:

		"The United States shall guarantee to every State in
this Union a Republican Form of Government * * *."

3. 	Article XVII, of the Oregon Constitution, provides
district methods for "amending" and "revising" the constitution. 
Under Article XVII, section 2, the process for "revising" the
constitution involves agreement by two-thirds of the members of
each house of the legislature, followed by referral to the people
for their approval or rejection at the next regular statewide
general election.

4. 	The legislature directed the Court of Appeals to
certify to this court any appeal from a circuit court decision
that invalidated on constitutional grounds all or a portion of
Measure 8.  Or Laws 1995, ch 284, § 2.

5. 	The parties do not challenge the court's mootness
determination in this proceeding.

6. 	We assume for the purposes of this opinion that
plaintiffs were the "prevailing party" in the circuit court.