Opinion ID: 182827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Questions Raised on Appeal

Text: Although none of the parties expressly raised the issue before the district court and the court never directly addressed it, the court’s ruling on the constitutionality of the OTCA 3 Boyle’s argument was based on the fact that Howell was crossing the highway outside an ‘unmarked crosswalk’ as defined by Or. Rev. Stat. section 801.220. Howell disputed the district court’s interpretation of section 801.220, which placed her outside the crosswalk at the time of the accident. In a related cross-appeal, No. 10-35038, Howell challenged the district court’s interpretation of section 801.220 as reflected in an exhibit provided to the jury and the court’s jury instruction that the exhibit reflected the location of the unmarked crosswalk. In a separate memorandum disposition filed concurrently with this order, we affirmed the district court’s ruling on the interpretation of section 801.220 and the location of the crosswalk. With the resolution of this issue, the only remaining issue on appeal is whether the district court erred in its application of Oregon’s remedy clause when it rejected the limitation on Howell’s damages as required by the OTCA. HOWELL v. BOYLE 723 damages cap was based on an understanding that the remedy clause protected Howell’s negligence action. The Oregon Supreme Court has said that claims are protected under the remedy clause when they allege an injury to absolute common law rights as those rights existed at the time Oregon ratified its constitution in 1857. Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 23 P.3d 333, 353 (Or. 2001). On appeal, the parties dispute whether Howell’s action is protected by the remedy clause because they disagree on whether Howell’s suit would have been successful at common law. Boyle and the City argue that Howell would not have recovered at common law because Howell’s contributory negligence would have completely barred recovery of any damages. See Lawson v. Hoke, 119 P.3d 210, 214 (Or. 2005) (“[I]n 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.”). Howell counters that in spite of her own negligence, she would have recovered at common law because: 1) Boyle had the ‘last clear chance’ to avoid the accident; 2) Boyle was grossly negligent; and 3) her actions were the result of Boyle placing her in a position of certain peril (the emergency defense). We are capable of applying these common law rules to the facts of this case, but we are not confident how they should be considered in resolving the constitutional questions presented. Howell and the City cite Lawson in support of their argument that, because the jury found Howell negligent, her claim would have been barred at common law under the doctrine of contributory negligence and is therefore not protected by the remedy clause. In Lawson, the court held that a statute precluding an award of civil damages to injured drivers who failed to obtain compulsory auto insurance was not unconstitutional because “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.” 119 P.3d at 215. In 724 HOWELL v. BOYLE explaining its ruling, the court noted that contributory negligence would have barred recovery at common law as an example “illustrat[ing] that the right to bring an action at common law could be limited.” Id. at 214. On the one hand, it is tempting to read this statement as indicating that, because contributory negligence would have completely barred recovery at common law, there is no constitutional barrier to capping damages where the plaintiff is found to have been contributorily negligent in a modern-day lawsuit. On the other hand, the OTCA damages cap has nothing to do with contributory negligence. Thus, unlike the statute in Lawson, the statutory cap on damages at issue in this case cannot be neatly matched with similar laws that existed at common law. Adding further ambiguity, we find no guidance in the Oregon case law on how the common law defenses to contributory negligence raised by Howell affect the determination of whether her action is constitutionally protected. If Howell’s action is protected, the parties also dispute whether $200,000 is an unconstitutional emasculated remedy. The Oregon Supreme Court has stated that a statutory substituted remedy is constitutionally permissible so long as it is not an ‘emasculated’ version of the remedy that was available at common law. Clarke, 175 P.3d at 432; Smothers, 23 P.3d at 354. The Court, however, has not provided a quantitative formula for determining when a remedy is so reduced as to render it constitutionally inadequate. In Clarke, the court held that the OTCA damages cap of $200,000 was unconstitutional where the plaintiff would have recovered $17 million at common law. 175 P.3d at 433. In Ackerman v. OHSU Med. Grp., 227 P.3d 744 (Or. App. 2010), the Oregon Court of Appeals held that the $200,000 OTCA damages cap against one defendant was unconstitutional where the plaintiff would have recovered $1,212,000 at common law.4 The court announced 4 An Oregon Court of Appeals’ announcement of a rule of law “is a datum for ascertaining state law which we may not omit unless we are HOWELL v. BOYLE 725 a list of factors in Ackerman that a court should consider, the first and most important being the disparity between the capped damages and the damages that a plaintiff would have received at common law. Id. at 756-57. Despite this guidance, we cannot confidently advance past the first step of the Ackerman rule. Just as with the first constitutional question, we are unsure how Howell’s contributory negligence and her potential common law defenses affect the application of the Ackerman factors.