Title: Lawson v. Hoke
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S51044
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: September 9, 2005

FILED:  September 9, 2005
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
ELISA LAWSON,
Petitioner on Review,
v.
SPENCER HOKE,
Respondent on Review.
(CC 0101-00766; CA A117388; SC S51044)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted September 10, 2004.
Willard E. Merkel, of Merkel &amp; Associates, Portland, argued
the cause and filed the brief for petitioner on review.
Janet M. Schroer, of Hoffman, Hart &amp; Wagner, LLP, Portland,
argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent on review. 
With her on the brief was Marjorie A. Speirs.
W. Eugene Hallman, of Hallman &amp; Dretke, Pendleton, argued
the cause and filed a brief for amicus curiae Oregon Trial
Lawyers Association.  Richard E. Oberdorfer and S. Patricia
Oberdorfer, of Oberdorfer Law Firm LLC, Portland, also filed a
brief.
Robert M. Atkinson, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, filed
a brief for amicus curiae State of Oregon.  With him on the brief
were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams,
Solicitor General.
Benjamin M. Bloom, of Hornecker, Cowling, Hassen &amp; Heysell,
LLP, Medford, filed a brief for amicus curiae Oregon Association
of Defense Counsel.
Jonathan M. Hoffman, of Martin Bischoff et al., Portland,
filed a brief for amicus curiae Product Liability Advisory
Council, Inc.  With him on the brief was Justin M. Thorp.
David L. Runner, Appellate Counsel, Salem, filed a brief for
amici curiae SAIF Corporation, Pape Groups, Inc., and Timber
Products Company.
Lisa E. Lear, of Bullivant Houser Bailey PC, Portland, filed
a brief for amici curiae Allstate Insurance Company, Oregon
Mutual Insurance Company, and State Farm Insurance Company.  With
her on the brief were Jeffrey S. Eden and John R. Bachofner.
GILLETTE, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. 
De Muniz, J., dissented and filed an opinion in which Durham
and Riggs, JJ., joined.
*Appeal from Multnomah County Circuit Court, Robert W. Redding, Senior Judge. 190 Or App 92, 77 P3d 1160 (2003). 
GILLETTE, J.
This personal injury action arising out of an
automobile collision raises a fundamental issue concerning the
legislature's ability to choose a particular legal device as a
way to advance a particular public policy.  Here, the legislature
chose the device of precluding an award of certain forms of civil
damages to those who violate the policy in question -- compulsory
automobile insurance -- as a kind of "stick" to encourage persons
to abide by that public policy.  For the reasons that follow, we
conclude that the legislative choice in this particular case is a
constitutionally permissible one.
The pertinent background and procedural facts are not
in dispute.  Plaintiff was involved in an automobile accident in
which defendant was at fault.  Plaintiff suffered both economic
and noneconomic injuries as a result of the accident.  Plaintiff
brought the present action against defendant, seeking damages for
both forms of injury.  However, as plaintiff acknowledges, she
was, at the time of the accident, an uninsured motorist.  A
statute, ORS 31.715, (1) set out post at ___ (slip op at 7-8)
specifically precludes uninsured drivers from recovering
"noneconomic damages" for injuries sustained in an action arising
out of the operation of a motor vehicle.  
Before trial, defendant, relying on ORS 31.715, moved
for partial summary judgment on the issue of plaintiff's
entitlement to noneconomic damages.  The trial court denied the
motion and, after a bench trial, awarded the plaintiff $5,790 in
noneconomic damages. (2)  Defendant appealed to the Court of
Appeals, which reversed that part of the judgment for plaintiff
that awarded noneconomic damages.  Lawson v. Hoke, 190 Or App 92,
77 P3d 1160 (2003).  We allowed plaintiff's petition for review
and now affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.  
In this court, plaintiff argues that her right to
recover damages for the noneconomic injuries that she suffered as
a result of defendant's negligence is a fundamental right that
was recognized in 1857, when Oregon's constitution was drafted. 
It follows, plaintiff reasons, that the right to recover damages
for such injuries is a "remedy" protected under Article I,
section 10, of the Oregon Constitution. (3)  Accordingly,
plaintiff argues, to the extent that ORS 31.715 precludes her
from recovering damages for those injuries -- i.e., precludes her
from obtaining that remedy -- it violates Article I, section 10. 
In addition, plaintiff argues that, to the extent that she has a
protected constitutional claim to noneconomic damages, Article I,
section 17, of the Oregon Constitution guarantees her the right
to have a jury decide her entitlement to those damages.  And, she
argues, because ORS 31.715 removes the question of her
entitlement to noneconomic damages from the jury's consideration,
it also violates Article 1, section 17. (4)
We first examine the constitutionality of ORS 31.715 under
Article I, section 10.  In Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc.,
332 Or 83, 23 P3d 333 (2001), this court analyzed the limits on
the legislature's power under Article I, section 10, to enact
laws purporting to limit a person's right to seek redress for
another person's negligence in the workplace.  Smothers involved
an injured employee's challenge to the exclusive remedy provision
of the workers' compensation law, which effectively denied a
remedy to a worker in any case in which a worker's  employment
conditions were not the major contributing cause of the worker's
disability or disease:  The employee in Smothers had no remedy
under the workers' compensation law, because workplace exposure
was not the "major contributing cause" his debilitating lung
condition, and he had no remedy otherwise, because a specific
legislative enactment denied him the alternative of seeking a
remedy through a tort action. 
The court reviewed the historical development of the remedy
clause of Article I, section 10, and concluded that that clause
protects "absolute common-law rights" that existed when the
Oregon Constitution was drafted by guaranteeing that a remedy
always would be available for injury to those rights.  Id. at
118-19.  In considering the plaintiff's claim in Smothers, this
court began by noting that a common-law cause of action for
negligence existed at the time that the Oregon Constitution was
created.  Id. at 129.  The court did not end its analysis there,
however.  Rather, the court stated that a more specific inquiry
was necessary, viz., whether the common law would have recognized
a cause of action for negligence under the particular
circumstances of that case.  Id. at 128.  In Smothers, the
particular circumstances that the court identified were that the
plaintiff suffered a permanent injury because the defendant
negligently permitted an unsafe condition to develop in the area
where the plaintiff worked, that the defendant had been aware
that exposure to that condition could harm the plaintiff, and
that the defendant did not protect the plaintiff from exposure or
warn the plaintiff that he would be exposed to that condition. 
Id. at 129.  
After reviewing various sources in an effort to determine the
content of the common law at the time that the Oregon
Constitution was drafted, the court in Smothers concluded that,
in 1857, the common law of Oregon would have recognized that a
worker had a cause of action for negligence against his or her
employer for failing to provide a safe work environment and for
failing to warn of the dangerous conditions to which workers
would be exposed.  Id. at 131.  Consequently, the court concluded
that the exclusive remedy provision of ORS 656.018 (1985)
violated Article I, section 10, because that statute denied the
plaintiff any remedy for a wrong with respect to which he would
have been entitled to a remedy at the time that the Oregon
Constitution was framed.  Id. at 135-36.  The key consideration
in the case was the fact that the statute left the plaintiff with
no remedy at all, either through workers' compensation or a
traditional tort action.  Id.  However, as this court
specifically noted, if a worker has an absolute common-law right
to a remedy for the employer's negligence, "and the claim is
accepted and the worker receives the benefits provided by the
workers' compensation statutes, then the worker cannot complain
that he or she has been deprived of a remedial process for
seeking redress for injury to a right that the remedy clause
protects."  Id. at 135.
The methodology that this court used in Smothers applies equally
here.  Under that methodology, the first question that we must
decide is whether an "absolute common-law right" that existed
when the Oregon Constitution was drafted in 1857 would have
provided plaintiff with a remedy for the injuries that she
sustained in the accident with defendant.  To answer that
question, we first must identify the circumstances of the case
that are pertinent to the inquiry, beyond the fact that plaintiff
was injured as a result of defendant's negligence.  For herself,
plaintiff contends that the question before the court simply is
whether, in 1857, the common law would have recognized the
absolute right of a person operating a vehicle on a public road
to recover damages for noneconomic injuries resulting from the
negligence of another driver.  We can answer that question
easily:  The common law of Oregon would have recognized the right
to bring such an action. 
We think that plaintiff's formulation of the issue before us is
incomplete, however.  A complete statement of the pertinent
circumstances must include one other circumstance. (5)  That
additional "circumstance" of the accident is the fact that, as
already noted, at the time of her accident with defendant,
plaintiff was not insured under a motor vehicle liability
insurance policy as required by law and, as a result, was not
entitled to be operating her motor vehicle on a public highway at
the time of the accident.  The issue in the case thus becomes: 
Would the authors of the remedy clause have considered it to be
impermissible to condition recovery of certain damages on
plaintiff's having a license to be at the place where her
injuries occurred?  We turn to that question.
The statute at issue, ORS 31.715(1), provides, in part:
"Except [for certain situations not applicable to
the present case] * * *, a plaintiff may not recover
noneconomic damages, as defined in ORS 31.710, in any
action for injury or death arising out of the operation
of a motor vehicle if the plaintiff was in violation of
ORS 806.010 [driving uninsured] or 813.010 [driving
under the influence of intoxicants] at the time the act
or omission causing the death or injury occurred.  A
claim for noneconomic damages shall not be considered
by the jury if the jury determines[ (6)] that the
limitation on liability established by this section
applies to the claim for noneconomic damages."
ORS 31.710, which is cross-referenced in ORS 31.715,
above, provides the following definition of "noneconomic
damages":
"'Noneconomic damages' means subjective,
nonmonetary losses, including but not limited to pain,
mental suffering, emotional distress, humiliation,
injury to reputation, loss of care, comfort,
companionship and society, loss of consortium,
inconvenience and interference with normal and usual
activities apart from gainful employment." 
Oregon's financial responsibility law, ORS 806.010 to 806.300,
requires all drivers on public roads to be adequately insured. 
ORS 806.010, the statute specifically cross-referenced in ORS
31.715(1) that is relevant to this case, makes it a Class B
traffic violation to drive a motor vehicle on a public highway of
Oregon without being insured to the extent stated in those
statutes. (7)  Thus, in this case, our specific inquiry is
whether, under the common law as it existed in 1857, plaintiff,
who was herself in violation of a law relating to her right to be
on a public highway at the time of the accident, nonetheless
would have had an absolute right to recover damages for all her
injuries -- including noneconomic injuries -- resulting from
defendant's negligence. (8)
We begin by noting that the text of the pertinent
statutes demonstrates that, strictly speaking, this is not a
Smothers case.  No statute denies this plaintiff a remedy. 
Indeed, it lay entirely within this plaintiff's control to be
fully qualified to be awarded all damages arising out of the kind
of harm that she suffered.  She was never -- and persons
similarly situated still are not -- a person with no remedy for a
harm that the common law recognized.  With the foregoing
observations  in mind, we turn to a more detailed examination of
the issue under the Smothers methodology.
We have found no Oregon cases from around the time of
the adoption of the Oregon Constitution that so closely match the
circumstances of this case that they are dispositive.  Facing the
same predicament, the Smothers court looked to various other
sources to determine the content of the common law at the time of
the drafting of the Oregon Constitution, including roughly
contemporaneous cases from other jurisdictions, as well as Oregon
cases decided in the decades shortly after the adoption of the
constitution.  Smothers, 332 Or at 129.  We do the same here. 
We begin by noting in passing the indisputable
proposition that, in the early years of this state's history, a
plaintiff's contributory negligence was an absolute bar to
recovery for the negligent acts of another.  That is, a plaintiff
could not recover damages for injuries caused by the negligence
of another if his own carelessness or negligence contributed in
any way to his injuries.  See, e.g., Stone v. Oregon City Mfg.
Co., 4 Or 52 (1870) (under doctrine of contributory negligence, 
employee who was injured in workplace by equipment that his
employer had negligently maintained would be denied recovery if
evidence tended to show that employee could have avoided injury
had he been more attentive).  We mention that rule only to
illustrate that the right to bring an action at common law could
be limited.  
However, the foregoing rule respecting contributory
negligence was one that developed in the common law.  What of
statutory rules?  Cases somewhat resembling the instant case
factually are the so-called "Sunday law" cases from other
jurisdictions.  Before and around the time of the adoption of the
Oregon Constitution, many states had laws prohibiting citizens
from traveling on Sundays unless the purpose of the travel could
be characterized as being either necessary or charitable.  And,
at that time, certain courts held that plaintiffs who traveled in
violation of Sunday laws were not entitled to recover for any
injuries that might have been caused by a city's or
municipality's negligent failure to keep the streets in good
repair.  See, e.g., Bosworth v. Swansey, 51 Mass (10 Met) 363,
365 (1845) (concluding that person's violation of law was a
"species of fault on his part" precluding recovery); Hinckley v.
Penobscot, 42 Me 89 (1856) (denying recovery to plaintiff injured
while traveling on Sunday when he failed to establish that his
travel was work of charity or necessity); Johnson v. Irasburgh,
47 Vt 28 (1874) (stating same principle).  Those cases tell us,
at a minimum, that it was not unfamiliar to the common law of the
mid-nineteenth century for courts to deny a remedy for negligence
to a plaintiff who was in violation of positive statutory law
when the accident occurred, even if the plaintiff's violation of
the law did not contribute directly to the accident. 
The logic of the Bosworth line of cases fairly can be
challenged on the ground that the coincidence of the plaintiff's
violation of the Sunday laws and the defendant's negligence in no
way establishes that the violation was itself negligence that
contributed even slightly to the accident.  That is, there is a
causal connection between the violation of the statute and
plaintiff's injury only in the "but-for" sense.  Indeed, a number
of courts in other jurisdictions took that view at the time and
declined to view the plaintiff's violation of the Sunday laws as
grounds for recovery from a negligent defendant.  See, e.g.,
Broschart v. Tuttle, 59 Conn 1, 21 A 925 (1890) (stating that
conclusion after extensive consideration of case law).  The point
is not, however, that some courts viewed Sunday laws as a ban to
recovery while others did not.  The point is that, at and before
the time of Oregon's statehood, some American common-law courts
took the view that violations of law could be a bar to recovery
for negligence.  More importantly, those courts took that view
even in the absence of any legislative directive to do so.
Perhaps the closest examples to our present case are
the livestock fencing cases.  In agrarian states, it was common
for domesticated animals to wander onto property other than that
of their owner and to do damage there.  From at least early in
the nineteenth century, legislatures addressed the problem.  For
example, in Indiana (the state whose constitution is the source
of Article I, section 10), (9) the legislature enacted a
statute respecting enclosures, trespassing animals, and partition
fences.  See Myers v. Dodd, 9 Ind 290 (1857).  The first section
of the statute required that a partition fence, to be lawful, be
such as a good husbandman would keep.  Id. at 290-91.  The second
section provided that, "if any domestic animal break into an
enclosure, the person injured thereby shall recover the amount of
damage done, if it shall appear that the fence through which the
animal broke was lawful; but not otherwise."  Id. at 291
(paraphrasing statute).  The Indiana Supreme Court held that such
an exercise of the legislative power in denying a remedy was
lawful.  Id.  
As early as 1870 -- only 11 years after statehood --
Oregon enacted a fence law similar to that of Indiana's.  Section
1 of that statute set standards for the adequacy of fences for
"all fields and inclosures."  Miscellaneous Laws of Oregon, ch
XV, title I, § 1 (1870), p 579 (Deady &amp; Lane 1843-1872).  Section
4 of the statute provided, in part:
"If any horse, cattle or stock, break into any
enclosures, the fence being of the height and
sufficiency aforesaid; * * * the owner of such animal
shall * * * make reparation to the party injured [on a
scale of reparation based on whether the trespass was a
first trespass, or a repeated one]."
Id.  Four years later, in Campbell v. Bridwell, 5 Or 311 (1874),
this court sustained the statute's abrogation of the common law. 
Campbell was a case alleging trespass by cattle, but the
plaintiff in that case did not allege that the plaintiff's land
was fenced in compliance with the statute.  This court held that,
in light of the statute, the absence of that allegation was fatal
to the complaint.  Id. at 312-13.  Accord, Bileu v. Paisley, 18
Or 47, 52, 21 P 934 (1889); see also Oliver v. Hutchinson, 41 Or
443, 69 P 1024 (1902) (citing Campbell, holding Oregon's
statutory abrogation of common law more extensive than Indiana
statute cited in Myers).
We note that, in the livestock fencing cases, as in the
other classes of cases that we have reviewed, a party was
disqualified from obtaining a remedy on account of the party's
violation of law, without regard to whether the violation had any
causal relationship (beyond "but-for" causation) to the party's
alleged injury.  The livestock fencing cases are particularly
noteworthy because they are cases in which the legislature
affirmatively directed that, when the statute was violated, there
would be no remedy.
We think that the foregoing examples are illustrative
of a common theme:  Early in our nation's (and our state's)
history, a plaintiff who would not have suffered the injury
complained of had he or she obeyed the law could be denied the
right to recover damages for his or her injuries.  In light of
that common theme, and in the absence of any case law or other
authority to the contrary that is more persuasive, we conclude
that no "absolute common-law right" that existed when the Oregon
Constitution was drafted in 1857 would have guaranteed plaintiff
a remedy for her injuries -- either economic or noneconomic --
under the circumstances of this case.  Thus, even if this case
were otherwise wholly analogous to Smothers, plaintiff's argument
under Article I, section 10, would fail. (10) 
We address one remaining issue in our analysis under
Article I, section 10.  Amicus Oregon Trial Lawyers Association
(OTLA) argues that there are no Oregon cases interpreting Article
I, section 10, in which a party was denied a remedy because of
that party's "unrelated defalcations," and asks rhetorically
whether the legislature could deny a parent who is behind in
child support payments the right to bring a wrongful death action
for the death of his child, or deny a property owner who is
behind in his property taxes the right to bring a trespass
action.  That argument is misplaced.  Despite the fact that
plaintiff's violation of the financial responsibility law did not
contribute directly to her accident, it is not an "unrelated
defalcation" analogous to those in OTLA's examples.  If plaintiff
had complied with ORS 806.010, she would not have been on the
road at the time that defendant committed the traffic infraction
that caused the accident. (11)  In much the same way that a
person's failure to maintain a lawful fence placed him or her in
a position to be injured by trespassing livestock, as in the
livestock fencing cases, plaintiff's violation of ORS 806.010 in
this case was in the chain of causation that led to the accident. 
This is not a case in which the legislature has attempted to
condition a person's right to a remedy on compliance with a law
that is unrelated to the circumstances that led to the action,
and we express no opinion respecting any attempt to create such a
rule. 
As noted, plaintiff also has argued that, insofar as
ORS 31.715 removes the question of her entitlement to noneconomic
damages from the jury's consideration, it violates Article I,
section 17, of the Oregon Constitution, which provides that,
"[i]n all civil cases, the right of Trial by Jury shall remain
inviolate."  Plaintiff and one of the amici have asserted that,
in Lakin v. Senco Products, Inc., 329 Or 62, 987 P2d 463 (1999),
this court held that a law that purported to cap the amount of
noneconomic damages that a successful litigant could recover in a
personal injury case violated Article I, section 17, and a
fortiori, a law that eliminates the right to recover noneconomic
damages also violates that constitutional provision.  As we
explain below, plaintiff's Article I, section 17, argument fails
for the same reasons that her Article I, section 10, argument
does.  
In Lakin, the plaintiff sued a nail gun manufacturer
after the nail gun that he was using misfired and caused him
serious, permanent injuries.  The jury awarded the plaintiff and
his wife $2,000,000 and $876,000, respectively, in noneconomic
damages, and the trial court reduced each award to $500,000 in
accordance with the statutory cap.  In reinstating the jury's
awards of noneconomic damages, this court reasoned that Article
I, section 17, guarantees a jury trial in civil actions for which
the common law provided a jury trial when the Oregon Constitution
was drafted in 1857, and that means that all issues of fact in
those cases must be tried by a jury.  Lakin, 329 Or at 82.   The
determination of damages, including noneconomic damages,
available in a personal injury action, is a question of fact,
and, therefore, the legislature may not interfere with the full
effect of a jury's assessment of noneconomic damages, at least as
to civil cases in which the right to a jury trial was customary
in 1857.  Id. 
In Lakin, however, there was no question that the
plaintiff had the right to seek noneconomic damages for her
injuries; rather, the issue was whether the legislature had the
authority to limit the amount of damages that a plaintiff could
recover in a particular case.  In this case, by contrast, the
issue before the court is whether plaintiff has the right to seek
noneconomic damages under the circumstances of her case.  
As this court stated in Jensen v. Whitlow, 334 Or 412,
422, 51 P3d 599 (2002), "Article I, section 17, is not a source
of law that creates or retains a substantive claim or a theory of
recovery in favor of any party."  Instead, Article I, section 17,
simply "'guarantees a jury trial in civil actions for which the
common law provided a jury trial when the Oregon Constitution was
adopted in 1857.'"  Id., quoting Lakin, 329 Or at 82.  This court
continued in Jensen, "The right to pursue a 'civil action,' if it
exists, must arise from some source other than Article I, section
17, because that provision is not an independent guarantee of the
existence of a cognizable claim." Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted); see also DeMendoza v. Huffman, 334 Or 425, 447, 51 P3d
1232 (2002) (rejecting plaintiffs' argument that law requiring
plaintiffs to split punitive damages with state violated Article
I, section 17, on ground that plaintiffs had no underlying right
to receive award reflecting jury's determination of punitive
damages, and those damages were not necessary to compensate
plaintiffs for their losses or injuries).  
In this case, we already have held that no "absolute
common-law right" that existed when the Oregon Constitution was
drafted in 1857 would have guaranteed a person in plaintiff's
position (as violator of a law requiring drivers to have
insurance) a remedy for her injuries.  No other source of law
authorizes plaintiff's claim for noneconomic damages.  Certainly,
Article I, section 17, does not provide such a source.  It
follows, then, that the legislature's choice to preclude
uninsured drivers from recovering noneconomic damages does not
implicate Article I, section 17, of the Oregon Constitution.   
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in part and reversed in
part, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further
proceedings. 
DE MUNIZ, J., dissenting
In Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 332 Or 83, 23
P3d 333 (2001), this court concluded that, because Article I,
section 10, of the Oregon Constitution guarantees a remedy for
any "injury" to absolute common-law rights respecting person,
property, or reputation, the legislature does not have plenary
authority to deprive an injured person of their damages for such
injuries.  Id. at 135-36.  Today, the majority retreats from that
interpretation of Article I, section 10, by concluding that the
legislature may bar injured litigants from seeking a remedy for
harm to an absolute common-law right.  I respectfully dissent.
Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution
provides that "justice shall be administered * * * completely"
and that "every man shall have remedy by due course of law for
injury done him in his person, property, or reputation."  In
Smothers, this court explained the wisdom of the remedies clause:
"[T]he remedy clause of Article I, section 10, protects
rights respecting person, property, and reputation
that, in 1857, the common law regarded as 'absolute,'
that is, that derive from nature or reason rather than
solely from membership in civil society.  By the
seventeenth century, the remedial side of the common
law had developed to protect those rights in the event
of injury by any other subject of the English realm. 
The function of common-law causes of action was to
restore 'justice' or 'right' following injury. 
'Injury' at common law meant any harm or wrong to
absolute rights for which a cause of action existed."
Smothers, 332 Or at 123-24.  Smothers reached the foregoing
conclusion by tracing the history and meaning of the remedies
clause, from its origins in the Magna Carta to its inclusion in
the Oregon Constitution.  Id. at 94-115; see also Thomas R.
Phillips, The Constitutional Right to a Remedy, 78 NYU L Rev 1309
(2003) (reviewing history of concept).  Smothers focused on the
ideas of Sir Edward Coke and Sir William Blackstone, because both
Coke and Blackstone influenced the drafters of early American
constitutions significantly.  332 Or at 94-99.
Coke expanded the laconic protections found in the
Magna Carta — "We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer
to any man either justice or right" — into a workable concept of
free access to the courts and justice.  The assurance in the
Magna Carta that the government would not sell, deny, or defer
justice or right meant that, in Coke's words:
"* * * every subject of this realme, for injury done to
him in bonis, terris, vel persona, by any other
subject, be he ecclesiastical, or temporall, free, or
bond, man, or woman, old, or young, or be he outlawed,
excommunicated, or any other without exception, may
take his remedy by the course of the law, and have
justice, and right for the injury done to him, freely
without sale, fully without any deniall, and speedily
without delay."
Smothers, 332 Or at 96-97 (quoting Edward Coke, The Second Part
of the Institutes of the Laws of England 55 (1797).  Based on
that proposition, this court observed, "Coke asserted that the
common law of England had come to guarantee every subject a legal
remedy for injury to goods, lands, or person caused by any other
subject."  Id. at 97.  Coke also emphasized that justice must be
"plena, quia justitia non debet claudicare," which means that
justice must be "full, for justice should not limp."  Coke,
Second Part of the Institutes at 55.  That is the source, in our
own state constitution, of the requirement that "justice shall be
administered * * * completely."  Or Const, Art I, § 10.  Coke
thus established the intellectual underpinnings of the modern
constitutional protection of remedies for civil wrongs.
Blackstone later presented Coke's ideas within the
philosophical context of eighteenth-century ideas regarding
natural law.  Blackstone located the right to a remedy squarely
within the framework of what he termed absolute rights -- that
is, rights of the individual that find their provenance in
natural law:
"The rights of persons considered in their natural
capacities are also of two sorts, absolute, and
relative.  Absolute, which are such as appertain and
belong to particular men, merely as individuals or
single persons: relative, which are incident to them as
members of society, and standing in various relations
to each other.  * * *  By the absolute rights of
individuals we mean those which are so in their primary
and strictest sense; such as would belong to their
persons merely in a state of nature, and which every
man is entitled to enjoy whether out of society or in
it."
1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 119
(1765) (emphasis in original).  Absolute rights, thus understood,
are individual liberties of the highest importance.  Based on
Blackstone's discussion, Smothers observed that, "[t]o
Blackstone, the guarantee of legal remedy for injury 'is what we
mean properly, when we speak of the protection of the law.' 
Smothers, 332 Or at 99 (quoting William Blackstone, 1 Blackstone
commentaries *56).  Hence, the maxim of English law, Ubi jus, ibi
remedium:  'for every right, there must be a remedy.'" Id. 
According to Smothers, the remedies clause reflects an absolute
right.
Many states adopted remedies clauses in their own
constitutions.  Smothers, 332 Or at 104.  During the nineteenth
century, state courts used their remedies clauses to prevent
legislative interference with judicial proceedings.  Id. at 108-12.  Smothers ascertained:
"[W]hen the Oregon Constitutional Convention convened
in 1857, courts and commentators had provided
considerable insight into the background and meaning of
remedy clauses in state declarations or bills of
rights.  Those cases and commentaries revealed that the
purpose of remedy clauses was to protect 'absolute'
common-law rights.  For injuries to those rights, the
remedial side of the common law had provided causes of
action that were intended to restore right or justice. 
Remedy clauses mandated the continued availability of
remedy for injury to absolute rights.  The requirement
that remedy be by due course or due process of law was
intended as a limitation on the legislature's authority
when it substituted statutory remedies for common-law
remedies.  It was the duty of courts to enforce those
restraints in evaluating whether particular statutory
remedies satisfied the requirement that remedy be by
'due course of law.'"
Id. at 112.  In light of its historical analysis, the court
confirmed that "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 118.  
Based on the foregoing understanding of the remedies
clause, Smothers struck down the legislature's imposition of a
barrier to recovery for an injury that the court determined was
compensable at common law, namely, an employee's cause of action
against an employer for failing to provide a safe work
environment.  332 Or at 135-36.  Smothers observed that, in 1857,
a citizen enjoyed the right to recover for injuries suffered
through negligence of others.  Id. at 129.  The plaintiff in
Smothers was unconstitutionally denied his right to a remedy when
the legislatively created workers' compensation system failed to
award him damages for his injuries.  More generally, however,
Smothers established that the Oregon Constitution protects the
compensatory purpose of the civil justice system from legislative
interference.
In this case, the legislature has imposed a barrier to
recovery of noneconomic damages in certain kinds of motor vehicle
accidents, based on whether the plaintiff has contracted for
motor vehicle insurance before the time of the accident. (12) 
The majority concludes that the legislature may raise such a
barrier because plaintiff's common-law right to recover for
injuries negligently inflicted by another person was not
unfettered or absolute at the time that the Oregon Constitution
was drafted.  Unfortunately, rather than basing its reasoning in
the constitutional text, history, and theory that this court
outlined in Smothers, the majority defends its conclusion by
referring to a few scattered examples of nineteenth-century laws
regarding Sunday travel and livestock fencing enacted in other
states. 
The majority's examples — put forward to show that the
original understanding of the remedies clause permitted the
legislature to enact barriers to recovery in tort — are not 
compelling, given that they must overcome the primary purpose of
the remedies clause, which was designed to protect individual
rights.  First, the fact that a legislature in some state enacted
a certain kind of legislation during the nineteenth century
proves little assistance to the analysis, because the legislation
advanced as an example itself may have been contrary to the
constitutional principle.  In fact, Smothers points out that
remedies clauses were enshrined in state constitutions out of
distrust for legislative power because such power could be used
to enact laws in derogation of the peoples' rights to complete
remedy.  Id. at 106-07.  
Second, the fact that the majority has located a few
judicial decisions that did not strike down laws enacted in
violation of a constitutional provision, such as a remedies
clause, does not establish conclusively that the law did not
violate the remedies clause.  None of the cases that the majority
cites as support of its narrowed view of the remedies clause
includes a discussion of the remedies clause in that state's
constitution.
The cases on which the majority relies prove only that
some legislatures were willing to enact legislation qualifying a
plaintiff's right to recover for injuries in some circumstances. 
Reliance on the legislation revealed in those cases, however, is
not a legal construction of the Oregon remedies clause that this
court should accept in deciding to narrow the protection
heretofore afforded by the remedies clause under Smothers.
Contrary to the impression that the majority's case
discussion creates, other cases from the mid-nineteenth century
demonstrate that state remedies clauses were understood to
protect plaintiffs from legislative deprivation of a right of
recovery of the kind at stake here.  See Eastman v. County of
Clackamas, 32 Fed 24, 32 (D Or 1887) (Deady, J) ("Can the
legislature, in some spasm of novel opinion, take away every
man's remedy for slander, assault and battery, or the recovery of
a debt? and, if it cannot do so in such cases, why can it in
this?"); Passenger Railway Co. v. Boudrou, 92 Pa 475 (1880)
(court declared statute limiting damages to $3000 to be
unconstitutional; "limitation of recovery to a sum less than the
actual damage, is palpably in conflict with the right to remedy
by the due course of law"); Davis v. Pierse, 7 Minn 1 (1862)
(court declared statute barring "all persons aiding the
rebellion" from prosecuting judicial proceedings to be
unconstitutional under state's remedy clause).
The legislature has the power to criminally punish or
administratively sanction drivers who operate a motor vehicle
without liability insurance.  However, the remedies clause
prohibits the legislature from interfering with recovery for
injury to absolute common-law rights respecting person, property,
or reputation.  Smothers 332 Or at 124.  Smothers makes it clear
that plaintiff's cause of action against another driver who
negligently caused plaintiff's injury is the kind of absolute
common-law right that was intended to be protected by the
remedies clause at the time the Oregon Constitution was drafted.  
I would hold that ORS 31.715, by precluding plaintiff from
recovering "noneconomic damages" for the injuries she that
sustained, violates the remedies clause of Article I, section 10.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.
Durham and Riggs, JJ., join in this dissent.
1. The legislature enacted the statute precluding
uninsured motorists from recovering damages for noneconomic
injuries in 1999.  Or Laws 1999, ch 1065, § 1.  The pertinent
section of that statute originally was numbered as ORS 18.592,
and that is how the statute is cited in the Court of Appeals
opinion and in the parties' briefs.  However, in 2003, former ORS
18.592 was renumbered as ORS 31.715.  There was no textual change
accompanying the renumbering.  For ease of reference, we refer in
this opinion to the statutory citation in effect today.   
2. The parties earlier had settled plaintiff's claim for
economic damages for $4,210.  
3. Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution
provides:
"No court shall be secret, but justice shall be
administered, openly 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."
4. Article I, section 17, of the Oregon Constitution
provides: 
"In all civil cases the right of Trial by Jury shall remain
inviolate."
5. Defendant argues that the circumstances of the case,
viz., the accident involved "highly regulated motor vehicles,"
are so utterly different from a negligence action involving
horse-drawn wagons in 1857 that we cannot conclude that the
framers would have thought that a remedy would be available. 
However, our examination of the case law satisfies us that
defendant's historical premise is not correct.  Aside from the
difference in horsepower -- one, two, or possibly four versus two
or three hundred -- we see no difference in principle between
vehicles negligently driven in the nineteenth century and
vehicles negligently driven today.  Indeed, case law from other
jurisdictions includes cases of negligent wagon-driving that seem
very similar to cases from the present day involving auto
accidents.  See, e.g., Broschart v. Tuttle, 59 Conn 1, 21 A 925
(1890) (defendant's negligent failure to keep horse under control
resulted in death of plaintiff's horse); Lyons v. Desotelle, 124
Mass 387 (1877) (action for injury of horse fastened at side of
road by negligence of another in driving against it).
6. ORS 31.715(1) refers to a jury's consideration and
determination of claims.  We do not find any basis in that
wording to suggest that the issue referred to can only be tried
to a jury.  There is no suggestion in that wording -- and,
indeed, no party asserts with respect to that wording -- that the
issue could not be decided by a judge sitting alone, as in this
case, either on motion for summary judgment or as a trier of
fact. 
7. ORS 806.010 provides, in part:
"(1) A person commits the offense of driving uninsured if
the person operates a motor vehicle in this state on any highway
or premises open to the public in this state without either:
"(a) The person being insured while driving the vehicle
under a motor vehicle liability policy that meets the
requirements described under ORS 806.080 [setting out minimum
required insurance coverage] or
"(b) The person or the owner of the vehicle providing the
Department of Transportation with other satisfactory proof of
compliance with the financial responsibility requirements of
this state." 
8. Defendant argues that the statutory provision denying
an uninsured motorist the right to recover damages for
noneconomic injuries establishes a condition precedent to
invoking a remedy, similar to a condition requiring a person
claiming libel to demand a retraction before suing.  We do not
reach that question because, as will be seen in the text below,
the fact of plaintiff's own statutory violation, as a
circumstance of the accident, casts sufficient doubt on the
existence of an absolute common-law remedy for plaintiff's
injuries that we cannot conclude that ORS 18.592(1) is
unconstitutional.  
9. See Charles Henry Carey, ed., The Oregon Constitution
and Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of
1857 468 (1926) (so stating).
10. It is at this point that the dissenters part company
with us.  They refuse to look beyond the fact of injury, thereby
wholly failing to recognize that, at the time of the drafting of
the Oregon Constitution, it was assumed around the country that
certain barriers, both common law (e.g., assumption of risk) and
statutory (e.g., fencing laws), permissibly could defeat an
otherwise meritorious personal injury case.  We hold no more here
than that Article I, section 10, did not abolish the
permissibility of such limitations.
11. Of course, plaintiff also could have complied with ORS
806.010 by being insured under a motor vehicle liability policy
that met the requirements of the financial responsibility laws of
the state.  In that case, ORS 31.715 would not have operated to
bar her recovery for the noneconomic losses that she sustained in
the accident with defendant, and this case would not be before
us.  
12. ORS 31.715 provides:
"(1) Except as provided in this section, a plaintiff may
not recover noneconomic damages, as defined in ORS 31.710, in
any action for injury or death arising out of the operation of a
motor vehicle if the plaintiff was in violation of ORS 806.010
or 813.010 at the time the act or omission causing the death or
injury occurred.  A claim for noneconomic damages shall not be
considered by the jury if the jury determines that the
limitation on liability established by this section applies to
the claim for noneconomic damages.
"(2) For the purpose of the limitation on liability
established by this section, a person is conclusively presumed
to have been in violation of ORS 806.010 or 813.010 if the
person is convicted in a criminal proceeding of one or both of
those offenses.  If the person has not been convicted of
violating ORS 806.010 or 813.010, the defendant in the civil
action may establish in the civil action, by a preponderance of
the evidence, that the plaintiff was in violation of ORS 806.010
or 813.010 at the time the act or omission causing the death or
injury occurred.
"(3) The court shall abate a civil action upon the motion
of any defendant in the civil action against whom a plaintiff
has asserted a claim for noneconomic damages if the defendant
alleges that the claim of the plaintiff is subject to the
limitation on liability established by this section and:
"(a) A criminal proceeding for a violation of ORS 813.010
has been commenced against the plaintiff in the civil action at
the time the motion is made; or
"(b) The district attorney for the county in which the
conduct occurred informs the court at the time the motion is
made that criminal proceedings for a violation of ORS 813.010
will be commenced against the plaintiff in the civil action.
"(4) The court may order that only the claim that is
subject to the limitation on liability established by this
section be abated under subsection (3) of this section. An
abatement under subsection (3) of this section shall remain in
effect until the conclusion of the criminal proceedings.
"(5) The limitation on liability established by this
section does not apply if:
"(a) The defendant in the civil action was also in
violation of ORS 806.010 or 813.010 at the time the act or
omission causing the death or injury occurred;
"(b) The death or injury resulted from acts or omissions of
the defendant that constituted an intentional tort;
"(c) The defendant was engaged in conduct that would
constitute a violation of ORS 811.140 at the time the act or
omission causing the death or injury occurred; or
"(d) The defendant was engaged in conduct that would
constitute a felony at the time the act or omission causing the
death or injury occurred.
"(6) The limitation on liability established by this
section based on a violation of ORS 806.010 does not apply if
the plaintiff in the civil action was insured under a motor
vehicle liability insurance policy within 180 days before the
act or omission occurred, and the plaintiff has not operated a
motor vehicle in violation of ORS 806.010 within the one-year
period immediately preceding the date on which coverage under
the motor vehicle liability insurance policy lapsed."