Title: City of Eugene v. PERB
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S50617
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: June 30, 2006

FILED: June 30, 2006
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

v.


STATE OF OREGON,


KAREN JENKINS,
 DIANE DAVIDSON, ARLYN STEPPER, 
 GARY GILLESPIE, ANN MONTAGUE, JUDITH ANN SUGNET, 
GARY NAUTA, and ROGER GARVER,


Intervenors-Appellants.


(CC 99C-12794)


LANE COUNTY,
CITY OF EUGENE, MULTNOMAH COUNTY,
CITY OF PORTLAND, CITY OF ROSEBURG,
CITY OF HUNTINGTON, and CANBY UTILITY BOARD,
 municipal corporations,


Petitioners-Respondents,


v.


STATE OF OREGON,


Respondent-Respondent,


and


STATE OF OREGON,
 by and through Public Employees Retirement Board,


Respondent-Respondent,


and


KAREN JENKINS,
DIANE DAVIDSON, ARLYN STEPPER,
 GARY GILLESPIE, ANN MONTAGUE,
JUDITH ANN SUGNET, GARY NAUTA,
 and ROGER GARVER,


Intervenors-Appellants.


(CC 99C-12838)


CITY OF EUGENE,
a municipal corporation,
by and through Eugene Water &amp; Electric Board,


Petitioner-Respondent,


v.


STATE OF OREGON,
 PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT BOARD,


Respondent-Respondent,


and


KAREN JENKINS,
 DIANE DAVIDSON, ARLYN STEPPER,
  GARY GILLESPIE, ANN MONTAGUE, 
JUDITH ANN SUGNET, GARY NAUTA, and
ROGER GARVER,


Intervenors-Appellants.


(CC 99C-20235)


ROGUE RIVER VALLEY IRRIGATION DISTRICT,
a municipal corporation,


Petitioner-Respondent,


v.

STATE OF OREGON,
 PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT BOARD,
Respondent-Respondent.
(CC 00C-16173)

(CA A121400; SC S50617)
On intervenors-appellants' petition for reconsideration
filed August 24, 2005.
Michael J. Morris, of Bennett, Hartman, Morris &amp; Kaplin LLP,
Portland, filed the petition for reconsideration.  With him on
the petition were Gregory A. Hartman and Aruna A. Masih.
No appearance contra.
Before Carson,* Chief Justice, and Gillette, Durham, Riggs, 
De Muniz,** Balmer, and Kistler, Justices.
DE MUNIZ, C. J.
The petition for reconsideration is allowed.  The circuit
court's January 16, 2003, judgment is vacated and this court's
decision is otherwise adhered to as modified.
* Chief Justice when petition was filed.
** Chief Justice when decision was rendered.
Intervenors petition for reconsideration of this court's decision in City of Eugene
v. PERB, 339 Or 113, 117 P3d 1001 (2005), that dismissed their appeal as moot.  Intervenors are
individual PERS members who intervened in the litigation below to defend, in part, employer
contribution rate orders issued by the Public Employees Retirement Board (PERB) in 1998 and
2000.  Because we concluded that their appeal had become moot, intervenors now ask this court,
in keeping with First Commerce of America v. Nimbus Center Assoc., 329 Or 199, 986 P2d 556
(1999) (Nimbus), to vacate the judgment from which they sought to appeal.  We allow the
petition for reconsideration and now vacate that judgment.
In City of Eugene, this court concluded that most of the issues presented by
intervenors' appeal from the trial court's January 16, 2003, judgment (1) had become moot
through a combination of legislative amendments to the Public Employees Retirement System
(PERS) and this court's decision in Strunk v. PERB, 338 Or 145, 108 P3d 1058 (2005).  We
noted that, although neither of those events had disposed of the one remaining issue in that case,
that issue nevertheless was moot as well.  That issue involved employer contribution rate orders
that PERB issued  in 1998 and 2000.  The trial court had found that, between 1996 and 2000,
PERB had issued contribution orders that incorrectly required employers to match members'
variable account earnings at the time of their retirement.  Consequently, the trial court concluded
that PERB erroneously had established employer contribution rates for 1998 and 2000 that were
higher than they would have been had PERB calculated the earnings-match benefits correctly. 
The trial court went on to set out what it concluded was the correct methodology for determining
those benefits. (2)  As part of their appeal, intervenors sought to defend PERB's prior
contribution rate orders and the methodology that PERB had used to calculate employee benefits. 

329 Or at 208-09 (internal citation omitted).  This court subsequently reevaluated that position in
Kerr and explained, among other things, the proper application of vacatur when parties settle a
controversy:


" 'From the beginning we have disposed of moot cases in the manner " 'most
consonant to justice' * * * in view of the nature and character of the conditions
which have caused the case to become moot."  The principal condition to which
we have looked is whether the party seeking relief from the judgment below
caused the mootness by voluntary action.
Kerr, 340 Or at 249 (quoting U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Company v. Bonner Mall Partnership,
513 US 18, 24-25, 115 S Ct 386, 130 L Ed 2d 233 (1994) (original emphasis deleted).  Kerr went
on to hold that, to the extent that Nimbus could be read to require vacatur of all judgments
rendered in controversies subsequently mooted by settlement, such a reading was incorrect. 
Kerr, 340 Or at 250.  Instead, Kerr established that vacatur is an extraordinary remedy to which a
party must show an equitable entitlement.    
1. That judgment resolved all the claims raised by the public employers in this case. 
A second trial court judgment, issued on April 23, 2003, subsequently disposed of all the claims
raised by intervenors.  Although PERB and one public employer, Eugene Water &amp; Electric Board
(EWEB), filed notices of cross-appeal from that second judgment, both appeals were later
dismissed after those parties moved to do so following their settlement.  As a result, the second
judgment in this case has not been part of this, or any other, appeal, and none of the parties
adversely affected by it have sought to free themselves from its effects through vacatur. 
Consequently, that judgment is presently not before this court. 
 

2. 
The trial court concluded: