Court Opinion

ID: 9575783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:17:08.88896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:01.669089
License: Public Domain

VAN HOOMISSEN, J.,
concurring.
The issue is whether plaintiff had given the state actual notice of her tort claim. ORS 30.275(6).1 The answer is anything but obvious. The trial judge concluded that plaintiff had not given actual notice. After reviewing the record, I believe that that conclusion is defensible. The Court of Appeals concluded that there was a genuine issue of fact about whether the Superintendent of the Oregon State Police was a “person responsible for administering claims.” Again, after reviewing the record, I believe that that conclusion is defensible.
*613On review, the state argues that the 1981 legislature only intended to expand the set of persons in state government who could receive tort claims notice to: (1) the specified persons entitled to receive formal notice, and (2) tort claims adjusters, i.e., those “responsible for administering claims on behalf of the public body,” who had received actual notice of a tort claim. The state further argues that ORS 30.275(6) implicitly requires that a state agency must be statutorily authorized in order to handle tort claims on behalf of itself. That reading of the relevant legislative history certainly is plausible.
The Superintendent did not consider himself to be a “person responsible for administering claims” merely because he was conducting an internal investigation of plaintiffs complaint.2 The Court of Appeals did not address the distinction the state attempts to draw between administering internal disputes and administering claims. This court’s decision rejects that distinction.
It is not clear how an agency will determine in the future whether a complaint constitutes merely an internal complaint or a notice of claim. This court’s decision could be interpreted to hold that an internal complaint sent to the head of any state agency, board, or commission will be deemed to be a notice of claim sent to a “person responsible for administering claims” on behalf of the public body. To be safe, unless and until the legislature clarifies the matter, an agency probably should treat every complaint received as a notice of claim. I doubt that that is what the legislature intended when it amended ORS 30.275 in 1981.
The result announced by the court today surely will undermine the central role of the Department of General Services (DGS) in state claims administration. Allowing department or agency heads to be appropriate receptors of claims notices will eviscerate the purposes of risk management statutes transferring responsibility for claims administration to DGS and creating centralized risk management. Indeed, if a notice to the head of a particular state agency, *614board, or commission will suffice, there will be no need to comply with the formal notice requirements of sending a notice to DGS. Moreover, every notice of an internal grievance potentially will become a notice of a claim.
Nevertheless, the language of ORS 30.275(6) is very broad in defining who “a person responsible for administering claims” is, and focuses on who actually does administer claims. The actual notice provision appears to focus on the practical aspects of claims administration rather than on the minutiae of the formal.notice provision. If actual notice was only effective when received by DGS, there would have been no need to distinguish between “any individual to whom notice may be given as provided in subsection (5) [of ORS 30.275]” and “any person responsible for administering claims,” ORS 30.275(6), because under the state’s reading of the statutes only the former are authorized to be the latter. That reading cannot be correct. After considering all of the possibilities, I concur in the result reached by the majority.
Whatever the intent of the legislature that adopted ORS 30.275(6), if this court’s interpretation of that statute is contrary to the policy goals of any future legislature, that legislature easily can amend the relevant statutes to make it clear who in state government can receive actual notice of a claim and who within a state agency, board, or commission is a person responsible for administering claims. The statute cries out for clarification. That, however, is a legislative and not a judicial responsibility.

 ORS 30.275(6) provides:
“Actual notice of claim is any communication by which any individual to whom notice may be given as provided in subsection (5) of this section or any person responsible for administering claims onbehalfofthe public body acquires actual knowledge of the time, place and circumstances giving rise to the claim, where the communication is such that a reasonable person would conclude that a particular person intends to assert a claim against the public body or an officer, employee or agent of the public body. A person responsible for administering claims on behalf of a public body is one who, as an officer, employee or agent of a public body or as an employee or agent of an insurance carrier insuring the public body for risks within the scope of ORS 30.260 to 30.300, engages in investigation, negotiation, adjustment or defense of claims within the scope of ORS 30.260 to 30.300, or in furnishing or accepting forms for claimants to provide claim information, or in supervising any of those activities.”

 The letter was not forwarded to the Director of the Department of General Services, apparently because the Superintendent did not believe that it was a notice of a tort claim.