Title: McCall v. Kulongoski
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S51960
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: August 18, 2005

FILED:  August 18, 2005
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
AUDREY MCCALL;
 HECTOR MCPHERSON; MICHAEL E. SWAIM;
 JAMES LEWIS and MARK TIPPERMAN,
Respondents on Review,
v.
THEODORE R. KULONGOSKI;
BILL BRADBURY and THE STATE OF OREGON
and its political subdivisions,
Petitioners on Review,
and
STUART MILLER, 
Intervenor-below.
LEAGUE OF OREGON CITIES;
BENTON COUNTY; CITY OF BEAVERTON;
CITY OF EUGENE; JUNCTION CITY; CITY OF VENETA;
BEV STEIN; VERA KATZ; MULTNOMAH COUNTY;
CITY OF PORTLAND and WASHINGTON COUNTY,
Plaintiffs below,
v.
STATE OF OREGON;
THEODORE R. KULONGOSKI
and BILL BRADBURY,
Defendants below.
(CC No. 00C-19871; CA A124384; SC S51960)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted May 6, 2005.
Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General, Salem, argued the cause
for petitioners on review.  With her on the briefs was Hardy
Myers, Attorney General.
Thomas M. Christ, of Cosgrave Verger Kester LLP, Portland,
argued the cause for respondents on review.  With him on the
briefs was Thomas W. Brown.
Megan A. Flynn, Portland, filed a brief on behalf of amicus
curiae Oregon Trial Lawyers Association.
DE MUNIZ, J.
The order of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
*Appeal from Marion County Circuit Court, Paul J. Lipscomb, Judge. Order of dismissal from the Court of Appeals dated       
September 21, 2004.
DE MUNIZ, J.
This case involves the appellate jurisdiction of the
Court of Appeals.  As petitioner on review, the State of
Oregon (1)  (state) seeks reversal of a Court of Appeals order
dismissing the state's appeal in this matter. (2)  For the
reasons that follow, we affirm the Court of Appeals order.
The facts are undisputed.  In 2004, plaintiffs McCall,
McPherson, Swaim, Lewis, and Tipperman (plaintiffs) sought an
award of attorney's fees from the trial court after successfully
challenging a state-defended ballot measure adopted four years
earlier.  The trial court entered a supplemental judgment
awarding plaintiffs their requested fees on March 12, 2004, and
on April 12, 2004, the state hand-delivered a timely notice to
the state court administrator appealing that judgment. (3) 
The state attempted to serve plaintiffs with notice of
its appeal by mailing a copy of the appeal notice to plaintiffs'
legal counsel.  In doing so, however, the state sent the document
to the wrong address.  More than one year earlier, plaintiffs'
law firm had relocated its Portland office from 121 SW Morrison
Street to 805 SW Broadway.  Shortly before that move took place,
the firm had sent a letter to the state's lawyers notifying them
of the firm's address change, effective March 3, 2003.  After
that time, the state had consistently mailed documents to the
firm's new address in the course of the parties' litigation.  For
reasons that remain unclear, (4) the state directed the notice
of appeal at issue here to the law firm's former address.
In spite of the incorrect mailing address, the post
office delivered the notice of appeal to plaintiffs' lawyers. 
The notice arrived at the firm's SW Broadway offices 32 days
after the trial court had entered its supplemental judgment and
one day after the statutory time period for filing and serving
the notice of appeal had lapsed.
Plaintiffs subsequently moved to dismiss the state's
appeal as untimely.  Citing the Court of Appeals opinion in
Harris and Harris, 104 Or App 209, 799 P2d 699 (1990), plaintiffs
argued that a notice of appeal is not properly served -- thereby
triggering the requirement that the appeal be dismissed for lack
of jurisdiction -- when it is mailed to a wrong address.  In
doing so, plaintiffs relied on the following passage from Harris,
which drew parallels between the service of appeal notices and
the service of summons under ORCP 7 D: (5)
"If service by mail of a notice of appeal is to be
an adequate substitute for personal service, it must,
as with other types of service, be reasonably
calculated to apprise the other party of the existence
and pendency of the appeal and to afford a reasonable
opportunity to appear and defend.  See, e.g., ORCP 7
D(1).  A wrong zip code with an otherwise correct
address, as occurred in Kahl [v. SAIF, 86 Or App 203,
738 P2d 999 (1987)] is reasonably calculated to give
that type of notice, because the claimant's notice
likely would have been delivered to the proper
addressee.  That probability does not exist when an
address contains the wrong post office box or when
personal service is on the wrong individual or
substituted service is made by leaving a summons and
complaint at the wrong address.  See ORCP 7 D(2)(b). 
Indeed, in those situations there is the possibility
that the intended individual will never receive notice
of any pending proceedings."
104 Or App at 212-13.  Plaintiffs went on to argue that, in any event, service of the appeal notice was late, having arrived one
day after the deadline for service had expired. 
The Court of Appeals agreed with plaintiffs.  Citing
Harris, as well as Paschall v. Crisp, 138 Or App 618, 910 P2d 407
(1996), another case that turned on the application of ORCP 7,
the Court of Appeals entered an order dismissing the state's
appeal.  The order stated:
"Respondents have moved to dismiss the appeal for
lack of jurisdiction on the ground that appellants did
not timely serve a copy of the notice of appeal on
respondents.  The defect in service arose because
appellants mailed respondents' service copy of the
notice of appeal to respondents' law firm's former
office address even though appellants were on notice
and actually knew of the law firm's new address. 
Notwithstanding the incorrect address, repondents' law
firm received the service copy, but not until the day
after the appeal period expired.
"The motion is granted.  Harris and Harris, 104 Or
App 209, 799 P2d 699 (1990) (court lacked jurisdiction
of appeal where appellant mailed respondent's service
copy of the notice of appeal to the post office box for
the trial court administrator); see also Paschall v.
Crisp, 138 Or App 618, 910 P2d 407 (1996) (mailing copy
of summons and complaint to address at which plaintiff
knows defendant no longer resides is not a manner of
service reasonably calculated to provide defendant with
notice of the action).
"Appeal dismissed."
This court subsequently allowed the state's petition
for review to consider the statutory requirements for mail
service of appeal notices and their concomitant effect on
appellate court jurisdiction in Oregon.
On review, the state first argues that the Court of
Appeals erroneously imported the notice standard set forth in
ORCP 7 D into the requirements for serving notices of appeal.  To
consider that proposition, we examine both ORCP 7 D and the
statutes describing the process for serving notices of appeal
under the now-familiar methodology set out in PGE v. Bureau of
Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610-12, 859 P2d 1143 (1993); 
see also State ex rel Turner v. Frankel, 322 Or 363, 372-76, 908
P2d 292 (1995) (analyzing statutes and procedural rules governing
discharges of juries under PGE to determine whether respective
schemes were "procedurally connected"). 
ORCP 7 sets forth the requirements for proper service
of summons.  Meeting those requirements is a critical part of any
civil action because, when a summons is correctly served, the
court having jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action
also attains personal jurisdiction over the party served.  See
ORCP 4 (state court having subject matter jurisdiction over an
action attains personal jurisdiction over party served with a
summons when service accomplished pursuant to ORCP 7).  As one of
its chief requirements, the rule requires that a summons be
served in a manner "reasonably calculated, under all the
circumstances, to apprise the defendant of the existence and
pendency of the action and to afford a reasonable opportunity to
appear and defend."  ORCP 7 D(1). 
The statutes controlling service of appeal notices,
however, are separate and distinct from the statutes controlling
the service of summonses.  That is because the act of filing and
serving a notice of appeal fulfills a different purpose than a
service of summons.  While the latter grants a trial court
personal jurisdiction over the party served, the former gives an
appellate court jurisdiction over the issue on appeal, to the
exclusion of the lower court.  State v. Branstetter, 332 Or 389,
403, 29 P3d 1121 (2001).  It is not surprising, then, that
different statutes also control service for that part of the
appellate process.  Although the statutes devoted to Oregon
appeals -- set out in ORS chapter 19 -- ultimately refer readers
to provisions in the Oregon Rules of Civil Procedure for the
correct procedures regarding appellate service, those provisions
are not found in ORCP 7.  Instead, ORS 19.500 mandates that
appellate service be carried out according to ORCP 9 B.  ORS
19.500 provides:
"Except as otherwise provided in this chapter,
when any provision of [ORS chapter 19] requires that a
paper be served and filed, the paper shall be served in
the manner provided in ORCP 9 B on all other parties
who have appeared in the action, suit or proceeding and
who are not represented by the same counsel as the
party serving the paper, and shall be filed, with proof
of service indorsed thereon, with the trial court
administrator."
(Emphasis added.)
The preceding discussion demonstrates that service of
appeal notices falls under ORCP 9 B, not ORCP 7.  Although the
Court of Appeals did not specifically invoke ORCP 7 in its order,
the cases that it cited either turned solely on that provision or
expressly imported the notice standard of ORCP 7 D to serve as a
defining rationale.  As a result, we must conclude that, to the
extent that a specific ground for dismissing the state's appeal
is evident from the Court of Appeals order here, it appears that
the Court of Appeals erroneously relied on ORCP 7, rather than
ORCP 9 B, as the basis for its action.
We now turn to a determination whether the order of
dismissal at issue here nevertheless was correctly entered.  To
facilitate that inquiry, a brief statutory overview regarding the
service of appeal notices is necessary.
Under ORS 19.240, a key component in the process of
commencing an appeal requires serving appellate notice on the
entities designated by statute to receive notice.  Among those
entities are the parties that previously have appeared in the
action:
"(1) An appeal to the Court of Appeals shall be
taken in the manner prescribed in this chapter.
"(2) The appeal shall be taken by causing a notice
of appeal, in the form prescribed by ORS 19.250, to be
served:
"(a) On all parties who have appeared in the
action, suit or proceeding[.]"
(Emphasis added.)  One method of serving parties with notice is
by mail.  ORS 19.260(2) provides, in part:
"Service of notice of appeal on a party * * * may
be accomplished by first class, registered or certified
mail. The date of serving such notice shall be the date
of mailing. Proof of mailing shall be certified by the
party filing the notice and filed thereafter with the
court to which the appeal is taken."
"(2) The following requirements of ORS 19.240,
19.250 and 19.255 are jurisdictional and may not be
waived or extended:
"(a) Service of the notice of appeal on all
parties identified in the notice of appeal as adverse
parties or, if the notice of appeal does not identify
adverse parties, on all parties who have appeared in
the action, suit or proceeding, as provided in ORS
19.240(2)(a), within the time limits prescribed by ORS
19.255."
In examining appellate notice in the context of mail
service, however, it is important to recognize that ORS 19.260(2)
only encompasses the fact that appellate notice can be
accomplished by mail and that the date of service is the date of
mailing.  The statute does not set forth how notice must be
accomplished.  
As noted above, ORS 19.500 expressly refers to ORCP 9 B
as the source of law for the "manner" in which a notice of appeal
must be served.  Among other things, ORCP 9 B requires that
appeal notices served by mail be addressed to the party's or
attorney's last known address:
"Whenever under these rules service is required or
permitted to be made upon a party, and that party is
represented by an attorney, the service shall be made
upon the attorney unless otherwise ordered by the
court. Service upon the attorney or upon a party shall
be made by delivering a copy to such attorney or party,
by mailing it to such attorney's or party's last known
address or, if the party is represented by an attorney,
by telephonic facsimile communication device as
provided in section F of this rule. * * * Service by
mail is complete upon mailing. * * *"
Several key points emerge from the statutes discussed
above.  The first, of course, is that serving the proper parties
with a notice of an appeal is a jurisdictional requirement.  For
the purposes of ORS chapter 19, the Court of Appeals has no
authority to consider a prospective appellant's appeal without
such service.  The second is that the statutory text that
controls how such service must be accomplished is framed, for the
most part, in mandatory terms.  Under ORS 19.240, appeals "shall
be" taken by serving notices of appeal on the parties.  Under ORS
19.500, such service "shall be" performed in the manner provided
by ORCP 9.  And under ORCP 9, mail service -- the type of service
at issue here -- "shall be" accomplished by mailing a copy of an 
appeal notice to the last known address of a party or the party's
lawyer.
When read together, the applicable statutes illustrate
that the legislature intended to premise appellate jurisdiction
under ORS chapter 19 on proper service of notice, and they also
underscore the fact that the legislature created a mandatory
procedure for effectuating such service.  As part of that
procedure, appeal notices served by mail must be addressed to a
party or a lawyer's last known address.  That did not occur in
this case.  Although ORCP 9 B provides that mail service of
appellate notices are accomplished upon mailing, this court's
cases make clear that those mailings must nevertheless take place
in the manner designated by statute.  As this court stated in
Mullens v. L. Q. Development, 312 Or 599, 605, 825 P2d 1376
(1992):
"Under our statutory scheme, the timeliness of service of a notice of appeal is tested by the date
on which the notice of appeal is mailed in a manner
permitted by statute, ORS [19.260 (6)], not by the
date on which a responding party receives the notice of
appeal.  That rule long has been a part of Oregon's
procedural law."
The state devotes a significant part of its brief to
outlining the evolution of Oregon's requirements for appellate
jurisdiction to argue that the legislature has not intended the
procedure for establishing jurisdiction to be a difficult one. 
We agree.  When ORCP 9 B service by mail is attempted upon a
represented party, the rule's sole requirement calls for the
sending party to mail a copy of the appeal notice to the last
known address of opposing counsel; actual receipt is not even a
factor under the rule.  In our view, few things could be less
difficult.  Here, the state knew and utilized the new address of
plaintiffs' lawyers for some time prior to mailing its notice of
appeal to the law firm's former address.  To the extent that a
difficulty exits under those facts, it is not one produced by the
statutory scheme or this court's interpretation of that statute.
The legislature is capable of shaping the law
surrounding appellate jurisdiction in different ways when it
deems it necessary.  In establishing, for example, the
requirements for appealing justice court criminal judgments under
ORS 157.030, the legislature eliminated the nexus between
appellate court jurisdiction and serving appellate notice.  ORS
157.030(2) provides:
"When the notice of appeal has been filed with the
court from which the appeal is being taken, the
appellate court shall have jurisdiction of the cause.
Failure to serve a notice of appeal on the appropriate
attorney shall not preclude jurisdiction in the
appellate court[.]"
The order of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
1. John Kitzhaber was Governor of Oregon when this action was commenced and, in that
official capacity, was named as a party in this case by plaintiffs, along with the state and
its political subdivisions.  Theodore Kulongoski now holds the office of Governor and
was automatically substituted as a party here pursuant to ORCP 34 F(1) (providing for
automatic substitution of public officer's successor) and ORAP 8.05(1) (adopting ORCP
34).
2. The exact nature of the issues raised in the underlying
case are not material to this proceeding.
3. A notice of appeal must be served and filed within 30 days after the trial court has entered
the judgment to be appealed from into its register.  ORS 19.255(1).  That period does not
include the day on which the period begins to run, but does include its last day, unless
that day is one in which an appellate court is closed for the purposes of filing documents
with the court.  In that case, filing and service must be accomplished by the next day the
court is open.  ORS 174.120(3).  Here, the thirtieth day of the filing period was on
Sunday, April 11, 2004.  As a result, the state's filing deadline became the next judicial
day, Monday, April 12.
4. In addition to the change-of-address notice that
plaintiffs' lawyers had sent to the state, the trial court also
had  provided the state with the law firm's correct address as
part of the supplemental money judgment awarded to plaintiffs.
5. ORCP 7 provides the controlling framework for service of a summons.  In particular,
ORCP 7 D(1) provides, in part:
"Summons shall be served, either within or without this state, in any manner
reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise the defendant of the
existence and pendency of the action and to afford a reasonable opportunity to
appear and defend."  
6. Originally, the statute recorded here was ORS 19.028.  That statute was renumbered ORS
19.260 in 1997.