584 May 15, 2024 No. 317

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE 

STATE OF OREGON

In the Matter of A. E. A., 

a Youth.

STATE OF OREGON,

Respondent,

v.

A. E. A.,

Appellant.

Baker County Circuit Court

21JU03704; A178835

Matthew B. Shirtcliff, Judge.

Submitted January 3, 2024.

Christa Obold Eshleman and Youth, Rights & Justice 

filed the brief for appellant.

Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, 

Solicitor General, and Greg Rios, Assistant Attorney 

General, filed the brief for respondent.

Before Shorr, Presiding Judge, Mooney, Judge, and Pagán,

Judge.

MOONEY, J.

Affirmed.
Cite as 332 Or App 584 (2024) 585

MOONEY, J.

Youth appeals a “Judgment on Restitution and 

Money Award” entered against him on a joint and several

basis with his juvenile co-offender, B. The judgment 

awarded restitution in the amount of $3,412.81 to State 

Farm Insurance for the costs it incurred on behalf of its 

insureds, youth’s parents, to repair the damage done to their 

car after youth unlawfully took the car from them. Youth 

assigns error to the juvenile court’s decision to order him 

to pay restitution. He argues that there is no evidence that 

he personally damaged his parents’ car. He argues, further, 

that even if there is evidence from which it can reasonably 

be inferred that he made it possible for B to drive the car, 

there is no evidence supporting the conclusion that the damages caused by B were reasonably foreseeable. We conclude 

that the evidence supported the juvenile court’s restitution 

award, and we affirm.

“We review a restitution order for legal error and 

are bound by the juvenile court’s factual findings if they are 

supported by any evidence in the record.” State v. C. A. M.-D., 

312 Or App 1, 3, 493 P3d 55, rev den, 368 Or 637 (2021). 

We draw the following facts from the record that was before 

the juvenile court when it made its dispositional decisions, 

specifically including the record before the court at the restitution hearing.

Youth stole his parents’ undamaged car, which 

became damaged while B drove it in a reckless manner. 

State Farm covered the costs incurred by youth’s parents to 

repair the car and to provide them with a rental vehicle while 

the repairs were performed. The total cost was $3,412.81. 

Youth admitted to conduct that, if committed by an adult, 

would constitute unauthorized use of a vehicle (UUV) under 

ORS 164.135. The juvenile court found youth to be within 

its jurisdiction, a restitution hearing was scheduled, and the 

juvenile court ultimately imposed restitution in the amount 

of $3,412.81.

ORS 419C.450(1)(a) requires the juvenile court to 

award restitution for “injury, loss or damage” caused by the 

adjudicated youth and suffered by the victim. “Restitution” 
586 State v. A. E. A.

is defined by reference to ORS 137.103 as the “full, partial 

or nominal payment of economic damages to a victim.” See

ORS 419A.004(29) (incorporating the definition of “restitution” from ORS 137.103 into the juvenile code). For restitution purposes, the term “economic damages” is defined by 

reference to ORS 31.705 as the victim’s “objectively verifiable monetary losses[.]” ORS 137.103(2)(a); ORS 31.705. The 

juvenile court must award restitution when there is sufficient evidence of criminal activity, economic damages, and 

a causal relationship between the criminal activity and the 

economic damages. C. A. M.-D., 312 Or App at 4.

Youth disputes causation. He argues that damage is 

not an element of UUV and that he therefore did not admit 

to causing damage when he admitted that he engaged in 

conduct that would constitute UUV if he had been an adult. 

Relying on State v. Mothershed, 323 Or App 16, 522 P3d 921 

(2022), he argues that his adjudication based on UUV does 

not provide evidence that he caused damage to his parents’ 

car. But this case is different from Mothershed. We reversed 

the restitution award in Mothershed because the defendant 

came into possession of the vehicle after it was stolen, and 

there was evidence that the damage had been “caused by 

the original thief.” Id. at 22.

But youth, here, does not occupy a position in 

the “post-theft chain of possession” like the defendant in 

Mothershed did. He is instead the person who stole the 

car from his parents in the first place. The question is not 

whether youth may be ordered to pay restitution for damage that had been caused by another person before he 

took possession of the stolen car. The question is whether 

youth’s criminal conduct (taking his parents’ car without 

their permission) caused the victim’s economic damages 

(the car repair costs ultimately paid by State Farm). As we 

explained in Mothershed, “[a] person who commits UUV 

may be ordered to pay restitution for damage to the vehicle” 

when that person’s unlawful conduct is a “but-for cause of 

the damage.” Id. at 22.

We look to “principles enunciated in civil cases concerning recoverable economic damages.” State v. Islam, 359 

Or 796, 800, 377 P3d 533 (2016). Guided by those principles, 
Cite as 332 Or App 584 (2024) 587

we recently discussed “but-for” causation in the context of a 

restitution case:

“The ‘but for’ test is often used in civil cases to determine 

‘whether a defendant’s negligence is one of many potential 

causes of a plaintiff’s harm.’ Haas v. Estate of Mark Steven 

Carter, 370 Or 742, 749, 525 P3d 451 (2023) (emphasis in 

original). The test does not, however, reduce causation 

to a single cause. It asks whether the harm would have 

occurred ‘but for’—or, in the absence of—’the defendant’s 

negligence.’ Id. Moreover, the ‘but for’ test is not the only 

test used to measure factual causation in civil cases. See, 

e.g., Lasley v. Combined Transport, Inc., 351 Or 1, 7-8, 261 

P3d 1215 (2011) (discussing cause in fact and the ‘substantial factor’ test).”

State v. Page, 330 Or App 672, 676, 544 P3d 421 (2024).

The record is not extensive here, but when it is 

viewed in the light most favorable to the state, it supports 

a reasonable inference that the vehicle would not have 

been damaged if youth had not stolen it. The juvenile court 

found that youth’s “conduct in taking the vehicle facilitated 

[B]’s conduct in driving the vehicle and causing damage to 

the vehicle.” It reasoned that “[e]ven if direct control was 

asserted over the vehicle by the accomplice [B] driving the 

vehicle, [youth]’s criminal activity was still a contributing 

factor to the loss.” The record supports those findings.

This case is similar to State v. Stephens, 183 Or App 

392, 52 P3d 1086 (2002), where the defendant had taken 

control of a car that he knew was stolen and then left it 

unattended in a friend’s unprotected yard. The tires and 

wheels were subsequently stolen from the car by a different 

person. We affirmed a restitution award against the defendant for the economic loss associated with the stolen tires 

and wheels because in the absence of the defendant’s criminal activities—exercising control of a vehicle that he knew 

was stolen and then leaving it unattended—the tires and 

wheels would not likely have been stolen. Id. at 397; see also 

State v. Doty, 60 Or App 297, 653 P2d 276 (1982) (explaining that the defendant was liable for restitution “for the loss 

resulting from the purported second burglary facilitated by 
588 State v. A. E. A.

his own negligent conduct in leaving the victim’s premises 

unprotected after his own criminal conduct had ended”).

Youth next argues that even if the record supports 

the existence of a causal link between his act of stealing 

the car and the damage done to the car when B was driving 

it, that damage was not a reasonably foreseeable result of 

youth’s conduct. But, that argument goes to whether the cost 

of repairing the car is “the kind[] of harm for which [youth] 

may be held liable.” State v. Ramos, 358 Or 581, 595, 368 P3d 

446 (2016). It does not go to the existence of a causal link 

as a factual matter. Youth clearly raised the factual issue 

of causation before the juvenile court, and again on appeal, 

and we have now addressed that issue. But the application of 

“reasonable foreseeability as a limiting concept under ORS 

137.106,” Page, 330 Or App at 677, is not about cause-in-fact. 

It is instead about whether, given the existence of a causal 

connection, the loss incurred is so far attenuated from the 

criminal activity that we would not hold youth responsible 

for such loss. Because youth did not raise that argument 

before the juvenile court, he did not preserve it for appeal, 

and we reject it without further discussion.

Affirmed.