Opinion ID: 2764895
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application: The meaning of ORS 654.086(2)

Text: We turn then to the meaning of the phrase, “unless the employer did not, and could not with the exercise of reasonable diligence, know of the presence of the violation.” In particular, we focus on the meaning of the disputed part of that phrase—“could not with the exercise of reasonable diligence, know” of the violation. In construing that phrase, we pay careful attention to its wording. State v. Vasquez Rubio, 323 Or 275, 280, 917 P2d 494 (1996) (“To interpret a statute properly, this court must focus on the exact wording of the statute.”). We do so because only that wording received the consideration and approval of a majority of the members of the Legislative Assembly. As this court explained in State v. Gaines, that formal adoption process produces “the best source from which to discern the legislature’s intent, for it is not the intent of individual legislators that governs, but the intent of the legislature as formally enacted into law.” 346 Or at 171. The wording of the disputed phrase in ORS 654.086(2), on its face, states that an employer is not liable for a serious violation if the employer had exercised “reasonable diligence” and still “could not    know” of the violation. Thus, there are two components of that phrase that require parsing—one referring to an employer’s exercise of “reasonable diligence” and the other referring to what an employer exercising such reasonable diligence “could not    know.” As earlier noted, in determining the meaning of each of those components, we must ascertain whether it is exact, inexact, or delegative in nature, so that we may apply the appropriate standard of review. Whether legislation is exact, inexact, or delegative is itself a question of statutory construction, requiring us to examine the text of the statute in its context. J. R. Simplot Co. v. Dept. of Agriculture, 340 Or 188, 197-98, 131 P3d 162 (2006). In engaging in that analysis, however, it is important to remember that a single statutory phrase may contain terms of more than one type. See generally Salem Firefighters Local 314 v. PERB, 300 Or 663, 668, 717 P2d 128 (1986) (rejecting argument that treated an entire statute as delegative without distinguishing its distinct components). Cite as 356 Or 577 (2014) 589 We begin with the phrase “could not    know,” as it is used in ORS 654.086(2), starting with a determination whether the phrase is exact, inexact, or delegative. In this case, we readily conclude that the phrase is inexact. It is not so precise as to require only factfinding. Nor is it an open-ended phrase that necessitates further administrative agency policy making. Accordingly, our task is to determine the intended meaning of the phrase, applying the ordinary tools of statutory construction. As used in this context, the word “could” is the past tense of the word “can” and, as used in its auxiliary function, expresses the “past conditional.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 517 (unabridged ed 2002). The word “can,” in turn, is defined as “to be able to do, make, or accomplish.” Id. at 323. See also The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 416 (5th ed 2011) (defining “could” as “the past tense of can    used to indicate ability or permission in the past”). In ordinary usage, it connotes capability, as opposed to obligation. The same is true in legal usage. See Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 98 (1987) (“Generally can expresses physical ability .”) (emphasis in original). In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we assume that the legislature intended words of common usage to be given their ordinary meanings. Ogle v. Nooth, 355 Or 570, 578, 330 P3d 572 (2014). Nothing in the context of ORS 654.086(2) indicates that the legislature intended that the disputed phrase have a meaning different from what the ordinary meaning of its terms suggests. Nor are we aware of anything in the legislative history of the statute to the contrary. We therefore conclude that ORS 654.086(2) requires evidence about whether an employer knew of a violation or, with the exercise of reasonable diligence, could know—in the sense of being capable of knowing—of the violation. We turn, then, to the phrase “reasonable diligence.” It is not an exact term; it lacks a meaning so precise as to require only factfinding. The more difficult question is whether it is inexact or delegative. This court’s prior cases have described delegative terms as those that “express incomplete legislative meaning that the agency is authorized to 590 OR-OSHA v. CBI Services, Inc. complete,” Coast Security Mortgage Corp., 331 Or at 354. In evaluating whether a given statutory term expresses such incomplete legislative meaning, the court has taken several considerations into account. First, the court often has compared a disputed term to those the court already has concluded are delegative in nature. See, e.g., Bergerson, 341 Or at 413 (concluding that “unreasonable” is a delegative term because, among other things, it “is among the examples of delegative terms this court has noted previously”); V. L. Y. v. Board of Parole, 338 Or 44, 53, 106 P3d 145 (2005) (concluding that a disputed term was “not like the terms that we have identified as delegative in the past”). Second, the court has asked whether the disputed term is defined by statute or instead is readily susceptible to multiple interpretations. See, e.g., Bergerson, 341 Or at 412-13 (concluding that “unreasonable” and “clearly    excessive remedy” are delegative because the relevant statute “defines neither term, and both are open to multiple interpretations” (citing Coast Security Mortgage Corp., 331 Or at 354)). Third, the court has inquired whether the term in contention requires the agency to engage in policy determination or make value judgments, as opposed to interpreting the meaning of the statute. See, e.g., McPherson v. Employment Division, 285 Or 541, 549-50, 591 P2d 1381 (1979) (concluding that “good cause” is a delegative term because it “calls for completing a value judgment that the legislature itself has only indicated”). Fourth and finally, the court has looked to the larger context of the statute in dispute, to determine whether other provisions suggest that the legislature did or did not intend a term to be regarded as delegative. See, e.g., J. R. Simplot Co., 340 Or at 197 (concluding that “reasonably necessary” is not delegative given additional, qualifying statutory wording). With those considerations in mind, we turn to the phrase “reasonable diligence” as it is used in ORS 654.086(2). On its face, the term is very similar to the sort of terms that the court has regarded as delegative in prior cases. In fact, the term “unreasonable” was one that the court listed as an example of delegative terms in Springfield Education Assn. 290 Or at 228. The term is not defined elsewhere in the OSEA, and, as the parties’ arguments demonstrate, it is Cite as 356 Or 577 (2014) 591 readily susceptible to multiple interpretations. “Reasonable diligence” does not just call for OR-OSHA to engage in interpretation; rather, it calls for the agency to engage in value judgment about what is “reasonable” and what is “diligence” under the circumstances of each case. Finally, there is nothing in the larger of context of the statute that suggests that the legislature intended the term to be regarded as something other than delegative in nature. To recap, then: ORS 654.086(2) provides that an employer is liable for a serious violation of the OSEA and its implementing rules unless the employer “did not, and could not with the exercise of reasonable diligence, know of the presence of the violation.” That means that an employer is not liable for a serious violation if the employer had exercised “reasonable diligence” and still “could not    know” of the violation. In reviewing an agency’s decision about whether an employer is excused from liability under ORS 654.086(2), there are two components, each of which triggers a different standard of review. First, as a matter of law, the reference in the statute to whether an employer “could not    know” of a violation refers to what an employer was capable of knowing under the circumstances. Second, we will defer to OR-OSHA’s determination about what constitutes “reasonable diligence” under the circumstances of each case as long as the agency’s determination “remains within the range of discretion allowed by the general policy of the statute.” Springfield Education Assn., 290 Or at 229. As we have noted, the Court of Appeals concluded that federal case law construing the federal-law counterpart of ORS 654.086(2) years after enactment of the state statute “dictates” a different reading of that law. Specifically, the court concluded that, in accordance with those federal cases, ORS 654.086(2) requires OR-OSHA, as a matter of law, to consider a list of particular factors in determining whether an employer “should” have known of a violation. The court predicated its conclusion that those federal cases are controlling on its reading of this court’s decision in Don Whitaker Logging, Inc. In Don Whitaker Logging, Inc., the issue was whether, under an administrative rule adopted to implement 592 OR-OSHA v. CBI Services, Inc. the OSEA, proof of a supervisor’s safety violation established the employer’s knowledge of the violation. 329 Or at 258. In resolving the question, the Court of Appeals had relied on federal cases interpreting rules adopted pursuant to the federal OSHA. This court concluded that the Court of Appeals erred in relying on those federal cases. Id. at 263. Among other things, the court observed that the administrative rule at issue was “unique to Oregon and ha[d] no counterpart in the federal OSHA.” Id. The Court of Appeals in this case read that obser- vation as implicitly holding that, if an Oregon rule does have a counterpart in federal law, later federal court cases interpreting that law become authoritative. In so doing, the court erred for at least two reasons. First, to draw that general principle from the court’s observation is logically fallacious.4 Second, to the extent that the court’s statement in Don Whitaker Logging, Inc., could be taken to suggest the appropriateness of resorting to some federal case law when an Oregon statute finds a federal counterpart, it does not go so far as to support the notion that federal case law issued after the enactment of the Oregon statute is authoritative. In fact, the law is to the contrary. Basic principles of Oregon statutory construction require that we focus on the meaning of the statute most likely intended by the legislature that adopted it. State v. Perry, 336 Or 49, 52, 77 P3d 313 (2003) (proper focus of Oregon statutory construction is the discernment of “the intent of the legislature that passed [the] statute”). That means that we attempt to determine what the legislature actually intended at the time of enactment. As this court explained in Holcomb v. Sunderland, 321 Or 99, 105, 894 P2d 457 (1995), “[t]he proper inquiry focuses on what the legislature intended at the time of enactment and discounts later events.” 4 To be precise, it suffers from the fallacy of the denying the antecedent. To say, “if Oregon law has no federal counterpart, then federal law does not control” (if not P, then not Q) does not necessarily mean that, “if Oregon law does have a federal counterpart, then federal law does control” (if P, then Q). For example, to say if it does not rain, then there will be no crop harvest, does not necessarily mean that if it does rain, then there will be a crop harvest, because the existence of a harvest could depend on any number of other factors than rain. Locusts, perhaps. Cite as 356 Or 577 (2014) 593 That, for example, is why this court looks to dic- tionaries that are contemporaneous with the time of enactment when determining the ordinary meaning of a statutory word or phrase. See, e.g., State v. Glushko/Little, 351 Or 297, 312, 266 P3d 50 (2011) (rejecting use of modern dictionary definitions to interpret statute enacted in 1864); Perry, 336 Or at 53 (“In interpreting the words of a statute enacted many years ago, we may seek guidance from dictionaries that were in use at that time.”). The same reasoning applies to the use of case law. Court decisions that existed at the time that the legislature enacted a statute—and that, as a result, it could have been aware of—may be consulted in determining what the legislature intended in enacting the law as part of the context for the legislature’s decision. See, e.g., Comcast of Oregon II, Inc. v. City of Eugene, 346 Or 238, 254, 209 P3d 800 (2009) (“[W]e must be mindful of    settled law as part of our analysis of statutory context.”). That is so especially as to case law interpreting the wording of a statute borrowed from another jurisdiction. See, e.g., Lindell v. Kalugin, 353 Or 338, 355, 297 P3d 1266 (2013) (“As a general rule, when the Oregon legislature borrows wording from a statute originating in another jurisdiction, there is a presumption that the legislature borrowed controlling case law interpreting the statute along with it.”); Jones v. General Motors Corp., 325 Or 404, 418, 939 P2d 608 (1997) (“If the Oregon legislature adopts a statute or rule from another jurisdiction’s legislation, we assume that the Oregon legislature also intended to adopt the construction of the legislation that the highest court of the other jurisdiction had rendered before adoption of the legislation in Oregon.”). Case law published after enactment—of which the legislature could not have been aware—is another matter. That is not to say that later-decided federal cases cannot be persuasive. Decisions from other jurisdictions may carry weight, based on the force of the reasoning and analysis that supports them. See, e.g., State v. Walker, 356 Or 4, 24, 333 P3d 316 (2014) (post-enactment cases from other jurisdictions “still may be consulted for their persuasive value”). But the fact that they involve similarly worded statutes, by itself, does not make those decisions controlling. 594 OR-OSHA v. CBI Services, Inc. At issue in this case is the meaning of statutory wording that the Oregon legislature borrowed from federal law. The United States Congress enacted the federal OSHA in 1970. Pub L 91-596, § 17, 84 Stat 1590 (1970). Included in that legislation was, as we have described, what is now codified at 29 USC § 666(k). In 1973, the Oregon legislature adopted the OSEA, one section of which—now codified at ORS 654.086(2)—was patterned after the federal law. Or Laws 1973, ch 833, § 21. The issue, then, is what the Oregon legislature intended when it enacted that section at that time, and any controlling federal case law that existed at that time certainly would be relevant to making that determination. In this case, the Court of Appeals principally relied on two unpublished federal cases, both of which were decided in the last few years. CBI Services, Inc., 254 Or App at 477 (discussing Public Utilities Maintenance, Inc. v. Secretary of Labor, 417 Fed Appx 58 (2d Cir 2011), and Kokosing Constr. Co. v. Occupational Safety & Hazard Review Com’n, 232 Fed Appx 510 (6th Cir 2007)). The court also cited a number of other federal court cases, a few of which were decided in the early 1980s. 254 Or App at 478-79 (citing cases). The court cited one federal court case decided in 1975. Id. at 480 (citing Brennan v. Butler Lime And Cement Company, 520 F2d 1011 (7th Cir 1975)). None of those cases was decided before the Oregon legislature enacted what is now ORS 654.086(2). Consequently, none of them sheds light on what the legislature had in mind when it adopted that statute in 1973. Still, the cases on which the Court of Appeals relied could be persuasive, depending on the force of their own reasoning. The Court of Appeals relied on post-enactment federal cases for its conclusions that “reasonable diligence” within the meaning of ORS 654.086(2) requires, as a matter of statutory interpretation, an evaluation of a number of factors, particularly foreseeability, and that, as a result, the statute essentially requires proof that an employer should have known of the OSEA violation. CBI Services, Inc., 254 Or App at 476-79. Cite as 356 Or 577 (2014) 595 As to the first point—whether “reasonable dili- gence” requires consideration of specific factors—in each of the cases on which the Court of Appeals relied, the federal courts reviewed factors that a federal agency had adopted pursuant to the federal OSHA. See, e.g., Public Utilities Maintenance, Inc., 417 Fed Appx at 63 (“OSHRC [the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission] has previously indicated that ‘reasonable diligence’ for the purposes of constructive knowledge involves” a number of factors.); Kokosing Construction Co., 232 Fed Appx at 512 (“ ‘Reasonable diligence involves several factors   ,’ ” quoting agency order). Under federal law, review of an agency’s interpretation of a statute is subject to a deferential standard of review. That is, the court does not determine what the statute means; rather, it determines whether the agency’s interpretation of the statute is reasonable. See generally Chevron, USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 US 837, 842-44, 104 S Ct 2778, 81 L Ed 2d 694 (1984). In this case, however, the Court of Appeals did not review a state agency’s interpretation for reasonableness. It concluded that ORS 654.086(2), as a matter of law, requires OR-OSHA to take into account the factors that the court listed. The cases on which it relied do not stand for that proposition of law. At most, they suggest that, if an agency considered such factors, that would be consistent with the controlling statute, which is an entirely different matter. As to the second point—whether the statutory ref- erence to whether an employer “could” know of a violation really means whether the employer “should” know—in each of the cases on which the Court of Appeals relied, the federal court used that phrasing without any explanation or analysis. In American Wrecking Corp. v. Secretary of Labor, 351 F3d 1254, 1264 (DC Cir 2003), for example, the court stated that “[t]he Secretary must always demonstrate that an employer knew or should have known of a hazardous condition to prove both ‘serious’ and ‘willful’ violations.” The court did not explain that phrasing. Interestingly, it followed the statement with a citation to a published order of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, Conie 596 OR-OSHA v. CBI Services, Inc. Constr., Inc., 16 BNA OSHC 1870,  (No. 92-0264, 1994), which stated that the federal OSHA requires proof that the employer “knew, or, with the exercise of reasonable diligence could have known of the violative condition.” (Emphasis added.) At best, such cases illustrate that there is a certain looseness with which courts may use terms like “could” and “should.” We conclude that the federal case law on which the Court of Appeals relied does not justify departing from the wording of ORS 654.086(2) by reading the statute to require proof of what an employer “should” have known with the exercise of reasonable diligence. Employer insists that the Court of Appeals cor- rectly construed ORS 654.086(2). In employer’s view, “federal OSHA law back to its inception” has treated the word “could” in 29 USC 666(k) to mean “should” in light of various factors and that nothing in the wording or the history of ORS 654.086(2) suggests that the Oregon legislature intended to depart from that understanding. The earliest case that employer cites in support of that proposition, however, is Jerry Botchlet Masonry Constr. Co., 5 BNA OSHC 1506, 1507 (No 13-135, 1977) (evidence was insufficient to support a finding that the foreman “should have known of the [hazardous] condition”). That case was decided well after the adoption of ORS 654.086(2). Employer also claims support for its position from Oregon tort cases in which this court held that, to prove constructive knowledge of an undiscovered hazard, a plaintiff must show that the defendant should have discovered it with the exercise of reasonable diligence. See, e.g., Diller v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 274 Or 735, 738, 548 P2d 1304 (1976); Cowden v. Earley¸ 214 Or 384, 387, 327 P2d 1109 (1958). Even assuming that employer’s characterization of this state’s case law is accurate, the fact remains that the legislature, in adopting ORS 654.086(2), used phrasing different from this court’s decisions involving tort liability. Ordinarily, such differences in phrasing are taken to signify differences in intended meaning. See, e.g., Dept. of Transportation v. Stallcup, 341 Or 93, 101, 138 P3d 9 (2006) (differences in statutory phrasing suggests differences in meaning). Moreover, employer cites nothing in the legislative history that suggests that the legislature intended to Cite as 356 Or 577 (2014) 597 adopt the standard for constructive liability in tort cases, and we are aware of nothing, either. Employer further contends that the Court of Appeals’ decision is supported by the “black-letter principle” that both the federal OSHA and the OSEA are fault-based. In employer’s view, permitting liability to rest on the mere capability of an employer to be aware of serious violations implicitly requires employers to “provide one-on-one constant supervision of each and every employee to assure that some fleeting violation which ‘could’ be discovered, if the supervisor happened to be looking at that precise time [,] was discovered.” Employer again is accurate enough in describing the federal OSHA and the OSEA as “fault-based.” This court recognized that much in Don Whitaker Logging, Inc., 329 Or at 263 (“OSHA is a fault-based system.”). Employer’s conclusion, however, does not follow from that premise. Under our construction of ORS 654.086(2), the statute remains fault-based. Employers are not liable based solely on the fact of a violation. If they did not know of the violation, and if they could not have known of that violation with the exercise of reasonable diligence, they are excused from liability. Moreover, an employer remains free to offer relevant evidence that, in the particular circumstances, it should not be held responsible for the employees’ safety violations, such as, for example, that the employer took reasonable steps to discover the violations, or that the employee misconduct was unpreventable.