Opinion ID: 1368846
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: oregon law

Text: We reach constitutional issues only after determining whether a case can be decided on other legal grounds, because a constitutional holding places the issue beyond the ordinary lawmaking process. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood Assn. v. Dept. of Human Res., 297 Or. 562, 564-65, 687 P.2d 785 (1984) and cases there cited. Fasano v. Washington Co. Comm., supra , the first case on which the Court of Appeals relied, did not cite the 14th amendment or Supreme Court doctrines interpreting due process of law. As explained in a later decision written by the author of Fasano, that holding rested on legislation which required county zoning to conform with a comprehensive plan, thus making certain types of zoning decisions dependent on fact finding and the application of general policy as embodied in the comprehensive plan to a discrete situation   . Those decisions, were, therefore, quasi-judicial rather than legislative in nature. Neuberger v. City of Portland, 288 Or. 155, 159-60, 603 P.2d 771 (1979). This legislative scheme implied certains safeguards characteristic of adjudicative procedure. See id. at 161, 603 P.2d 771; Strawberry Hill 4 Wheelers, 287 Or. at 603, 601 P.2d 769. The main holding in Fasano itself concerned burdens of proof and the scope of judicial review of local zone changes. See 264 Or. at 586-88, 507 P.2d 23. The court considered it appropriate to add some procedural guidance for future cases, specifically that parties at county board hearings are entitled to an opportunity to be heard, to an opportunity to present and rebut evidence, to a tribunal which is impartial in the matter  i.e., having had no pre-hearing or ex parte contacts concerning the question at issue  and to a record made and adequate findings executed. Fasano, 264 Or. at 588, 507 P.2d 23 (citation omitted). In using i.e. in the quoted sentence, Fasano did not mean to imply that only pre-hearing or ex parte contacts could destroy the required impartiality; obviously, selfdealing and various types of bias also would do so. But Fasano did clearly state that board members must maintain impartiality only toward the parties and issues in the matter, not toward all individuals and all competing interests in the community generally, and similarly, that the disqualifying contacts must be concerning the question at issue. The matter and the question at issue here concerned the proposal to incorporate Rajneeshpuram. LUBA concluded from the evidence that the proponents may have been eager to make a cattle deal with the county judge, but that alone does not make their dealings with Cantrell a disqualifying contact. The Court of Appeals first quoted from Commonwealth Corp. v. Casualty Co., supra , that any tribunal permitted by law to try cases and controversies not only must be unbiased but also must avoid even the appearance of bias, 393 U.S. at 150, 89 S.Ct. at 340, quoted in 80 Or. App. at 539, 723 P.2d 1034, and the court continued: Cantrell should have disclosed his dealings with the ranch officials, and, having failed to do so, was disqualified to sit on the petition for the incorporation election. 80 Or. App. at 539, 723 P.2d 1034. This leaves unclear whether the Court of Appeals thought that nondisclosure of facts, but not disclosure of facts, produces an appearance of bias. In any event, Fasano did not go beyond a standard of actual impartiality to demand that board members in quasijudicial procedures maintain the appearance of impartiality required of judges. [2] The prefix quasi, we recently said in another context, means that a thing is treated as if it were something it resembles but is not. State ex rel. Eckles v. Woolley, 302 Or. 37, 45, 726 P.2d 918 (1986). The quasijudicial decisions of local general-purpose governing bodies resemble, or should resemble, adjudications in important respects that bear on the procedural fairness and substantive correctness of the decision, but in other respects these bodies remain more quasi than judicial. Their members are politically elected to positions that do not separate legislative from executive and judicial power on the state or federal model; characteristically they combine lawmaking with administration that is sometimes executive and sometimes adjudicative. The combination leaves little room to demand that an elected board member who actively pursues a particular view of the community's interest in his policymaking role must maintain an appearance of having no such view when the decision is to be made by an adjudicatory procedure. Also, the members of most governing bodies in this state serve part-time and without pay, making their livings from the ordinary pursuits and private transactions of their communities. Restrictions on permissible business activities and sources of outside income imposed on judges for the sake of appearance do not apply by analogy to such board members. The distinction between two types of bias, prejudgment and personal interest, is illustrated by McNamara v. Borough of Saddle River, 60 N.J. Super. 367, 158 A.2d 722 (1960). There neighboring residents had fought the conversion of a large residential property into a private school, obtaining enactment of a restrictive ordinance and joining in litigation to enforce the restriction. One of the leaders of the protesting homeowners was elected to the borough council, where he voted to impose space requirements on schools that would further restrict possible enrollment of a school at the disputed site. The New Jersey court held that the councilman's vote required invalidation of this ordinance, not because of his prior political and legal battles to block the proposed school, but because his strong personal interest as a nearby homeowner impaired his ability to vote objectively in the interest of the citizens at large. 60 N.J. Super. at 378, 158 A.2d 722. However we might decide that case, it involved an actual, not an apparent, personal interest. That, in fact, may also be true of the vote invalidated in Swift v. Island County, 87 Wash.2d 348, 552 P.2d 175 (1976), in which an officer of a lending institution participated as a county commissioner in approving a development that could indirectly benefit his company. The Washington court, however, went beyond the commissioner's actual interest and set aside the vote of approval for lacking an `appearance of fairness.' 87 Wash.2d at 361, 552 P.2d 175. The court continued: This doctrine has been developed to preserve the highest public confidence in those governmental processes which bring about zoning changes or which formulate property use and land planning measures.    It is the possible range of mental impressions made upon the public's mind, rather than the intent of the acting governmental employee, that matters. The question to be asked is this: Would a disinterested person, having been apprised of the totality of a board member's personal interest in a matter being acted upon, be reasonably justified in thinking that partiality may exist? If answered in the affirmative, such deliberations, and any course of conduct reached thereon, should be voided. Id. (citations omitted). There also are dicta about public confidence as a reason for disqualifying members of zoning boards in Mills v. Town Plan & Zoning Commission, 144 Conn. 493, 134 A.2d 250 (1957), in which the court cited nothing beyond public policy for this and the decision rested on actual conflicts of interest, and in Fail v. LaPorte Cty. Board of Zoning Appeals, 171 Ind. App. 192, 355 N.E.2d 455 (1976), in which a statute disqualified board members directly or indirectly interested in a financial sense and the decision was against disqualifying a member who had occasionally bought equipment from the applicant for a zoning variance. We find no basis in Oregon law for imposing the test of appearance stated by the Washington court in Swift. We do not minimize the value of evident as well as actual objectivity and disinterestedness in governmental decisions. Its importance is recognized in the government ethics law, ORS chapter 244, and elsewhere. Lawmakers have chosen to promote confidence in official probity by means of periodic disclosure of specified economic interests by state officials. ORS 244.050 to 244.110. The requirement extends to local officials if local voters so choose. ORS 244.160 to 244.201. The law also requires public officials to announce potential conflicts of interest before acting in the matter involving the potential conflict. ORS 244.120 to 244.130. Beyond these disclosure requirements, ORS 244.040 proscribes the actual use of an official's position or office to obtain financial gain for the public official or for closely associated persons. See Davidson v. Oregon Government Ethics Comm., 300 Or. 415, 712 P.2d 87 (1985). The Oregon Government Ethics Commission is responsible for enforcing the statute against officials, as it did in Davidson, but the statute does not prescribe the effect of a violation on the official's action. ORS 244.350 to 244.390. If actual bias or self-interest will invalidate an official's action, at least quasijudicial action, a prophylactic rule invalidating action for lacking an `appearance of fairness,' Swift v. Island County, supra , may seem merely a desirable further step toward the same goal. That is not necessarily so. Of course, a reviewing body may find it less painful to order reconsideration of an official's action for insufficient respect for appearances than to determine whether the official in fact acted under the influence of bias or self-interest. But the two standards serve different interests. Actual impartiality protects the substantive quality of the official action as well as the parties' interest in its fairness. Invalidation for appearance alone, as the Swift court said, aims to preserve public confidence, and it does so regardless whether the decision in fact was both correct and fair. The price of such invalidation is delay of what, but for appearances, is a proper application of public policy, at potentially heavy cost to an innocently successful proponent as well as to the agency. Public confidence in judicial institutions is given such priority over efficiency even in a fairly and correctly decided case. [3] Even for decisions of elected boards that, as we have said, are more quasi than judicial, this priority for public confidence may be the desirable choice. But it is not a choice for this court to impose in the name of public policy. The contrary choice of policy toward appearances alone is implied by the provision in Oregon's governmental ethics law against invalidating actions for failure to disclose a potential conflict of interest, ORS 244.130(2).