Opinion ID: 2795328
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Grounds for Certification

Text: Under Oregon law: The Supreme Court may answer questions of law certified to it by the Supreme Court of the United States, a Court of Appeals of the United States, a United States District Court, a panel of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel Service or the highest appellate court or the intermediate appellate court of any other state, when requested by the certifying court if there are involved in any proceedings before it questions of law of this state which may be determinative of the cause then pending in the certifying court and as to which it appears to the certifying court there is no controlling precedent in the decisions of the Supreme Court and the intermediate appellate courts of this state. 14 JOHNSON V. GIBSON ORS 28.200. See W. Helicopter Servs., 311 Or. at 364, 811 P.2d at 630; Fields v. Legacy Health Sys., 413 F.3d 943, 958 (9th Cir. 2005). We conclude that this standard is satisfied here. First, we are aware of no controlling precedent addressing whether an individual employee responsible for repairing, maintaining and operating improvements on City-owned recreational land made available to the public for recreational purposes can properly be considered an “owner” of land as that term is defined in the Oregon Public Use of Lands Act. Brewer held that “those who maintain and operate improvements on land . . . fall within the scope of [the statutory] definition” of owner. 167 Or. App. at 179, 2 P.3d at 422. The defendants here, however, may not be comparable to the Swackhammer Ditch Improvement District. They are individual city employees, not an entity, and they may not exercise the same degree of control over the park that Swackhammer exercised over the dam. Under Oregon law, moreover, “there is no more persuasive evidence of the intent of the legislature than the words by which the legislature undertook to give expression to its wishes.” State v. Gaines, 346 Or. 160, 171, 206 P.3d 1042, 1050 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the first step in interpreting a statute is “an examination of text and context.” Id. Here, neither the Oregon Supreme Court nor the Oregon Court of Appeals has carefully examined the operative words of ORS 105.672(4) – “owner,” “occupant” and “person in possession” – or applied them to a city maintenance worker. Second, we likewise are aware of no controlling precedent addressing whether the Public Use of Lands Act violates the remedy clause of the Oregon Constitution as applied to the owners of public land. Although Brewer is on JOHNSON V. GIBSON 15 point, neither the Oregon Supreme Court nor the Oregon Court of Appeals has yet addressed whether Brewer has been abrogated by Smothers. Schlesinger called Brewer into question without deciding the issue. The Oregon Supreme Court denied review in Brewer, but this is not dispositive. See 1000 Friends of Or. v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, Benton Cnty., 284 Or. 41, 45, 584 P.2d 1371, 1373 (1978) (explaining that denial of review by the Oregon Supreme Court “may not be taken as expressing even a slight sign that this court approves the decision or the opinion of the Court of Appeals”); accord In re Marriage of Bolte, 349 Or. 289, 294, 243 P.3d 1187, 1189 (2010) (“[A] denial of review carries no implication that the decision or the opinion of the Court of Appeals was correct.” (quoting 1000 Friends of Oregon, 284 Or. at 44, 584 P.2d at 1372)). Another Oregon Court of Appeals decision applied Brewer, but was later reversed on other grounds, and thus does not constitute controlling precedent on the continuing validity of Brewer. See Liberty v. State, Dep’t of Transp., 200 Or. App. 607, 619–20, 116 P.3d 902, 909, opinion adhered to as modified on reconsideration, 202 Or. App. 355, 122 P.3d 95 (2005), and rev’d, 342 Or. 11, 148 P.3d 909 (2006). Accordingly, certification is appropriate to determine whether Brewer remains good law and, if not, whether the Public Use of Lands Act violates the remedy clause of the Oregon Constitution as applied to Johnson’s claim.