Court Opinion

ID: 9551222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:49:30.745482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:21.127957
License: Public Domain

CARSON, J.,
concurring.
Were this court writing on the proverbial clean slate, I would agree with the trial judge that the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (ORS 91.700 to 91.900) does not apply to the facts of this case. However, the slate is not clean. In the case of Brewer v. Erwin, 287 Or 435, 447, 600 P2d 398 (1979), this court concluded that the legislature extended a landlord’s liability for “actual damages” to a tenant beyond what was termed the “narrow economic measure of tenant’s loss defined in ORS 91.805.” As noted by the majority in this case (although not necessary to benefit the tenant-plaintiff in that case), Brewer extended the provided remedies to “an aggrieved party,” which would include others than the tenant. Brewer v. Erwin, supra, 287 Or at 441.
If this court in Brewer in 1979 extended the Act beyond the confines envisioned by the legislature when it enacted the Act in 1973, which I believe we did, three legislative sessions since our decision in Brewer have convened and adjourned without changing the relevant statutory language.1 One necessarily must assume now that the legislature does not view the decision of this court in Brewer to be contrary to its earlier legislative work, or at least, I so assume. Given that premise, it is not appropriate for me now to argue to the contrary.
The majority’s extension of Brewer to the facts of this case is a logical and consistent application of this court’s opinion in Brewer. I therefore concur.

As noted in Brewer:
“If the interpretation we have given the act departs from the intended policy, or if that policy is revised in the light of experience, its provisions can be amended accordingly.” Brewer v. Erwin, 287 Or 435, 454, 600 P2d 398 (1979).