Opinion ID: 2604379
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Emergency Act Immunity.

Text: Plaintiffs argue that an ORS Chapter 401 emergency defense is not available for each of the three following reasons: (1) Defendant did not plead it as an affirmative defense, although defendant affirmatively pleaded six other defenses. (2) The statute allows the emergency defense only where the city establishes an emergency management agency, which defendant had not done. (3) The emergency immunity statute expressly provides that it does not excuse liability for intentional destruction of private property by any governmental agency. Our disposition of plaintiffs' first argument makes it unnecessary to reach their remaining arguments. Because the claim of emergency agency immunity must have been pleaded as an affirmative defense, we hold that defendant was not entitled to assert it on appeal. [3] The relevant pleading rules call for defenses to be pleaded. Oregon Rules of Civil Procedure (ORCP) 13 A provides: The pleadings are the written statements by the parties of the facts constituting their respective claims and defenses. ORCP 19 B provides in part: In pleading to a preceding pleading, a party shall set forth affirmatively accord and satisfaction, arbitration and award, assumption of risk    and any other matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense.    ORCP 21 A provides in part:  Every defense, in law or fact, to a claim for relief in any pleading, whether a complaint, counterclaim, cross-claim or third party claim, shall be asserted in the responsive pleading thereto   . (Emphasis added.) According to ORCP 12 A, [a]ll pleadings shall be liberally construed with a view of substantial justice between the parties, but some ultimate fact must be pleaded before there is anything to construe. [4] ORCP 19 B in part requires that a party shall set forth affirmatively    any other matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense. This, city did not do. However, ORCP 12 B provides a test for disregarding pleading defects, stating that: The court shall, in every stage of an action, disregard any error or defect in the pleadings or proceedings which does not affect the substantial rights of the adverse party. A substantial right is affected where the pleadings fail to allege facts that alert the court to and support the actual claims or defenses of an adverse party. Our cases have required pleadings of adequate facts. Samuel v. Frohnmayer, 308 Or. 362, 369, 779 P.2d 1028 (1989) (If recovery of attorney fees is to be based on ORS 182.090, some notice in the form of pleaded facts will be necessary before a court can consider awarding them.). A review of one section of ORS chapter 401, ORS 401.515, indicates that many different issues of fact and law may arise under that chapter as to whether immunity is available to a specific actor or a specific action. Because of city's failure to plead immunity under ORS 401.515 as an affirmative defense, the record developed in this case provides no basis on which to identify the relevant legal or factual issues as to city's claim of immunity, let alone to resolve them, even though a full trial otherwise was held. City's failure to plead immunity under ORS 401.515 is fatal to its assertion of it as a defense. We turn to another potential source of statutory immunity.