Court Opinion

ID: 9747297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:09:17.625266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:22.580032
License: Public Domain

SERCOMBE, J.,
concurring.
I concur with the majority’s conclusion that the ad hoc investigation of the license registration of a vehicle *362driven by defendant did not violate Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. I also agree that the investigation did not deny defendant an official privilege or immunity made available to other citizens of this state as proscribed by Article I, section 20. That provision provides that “[n]o law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.” (Emphasis added.) This case does not involve a law that classifies privileges in impermissible ways (“granting to any * * * class of citizens privileges [ ] or immunities”) or that affects an individual citizen (“granting to any citizen * * * privileges[ ] or immunities”) by a delegation of authority to a government agent to offer or restrict an official privilege or immunity that is available to that person. Under our case law, those are the types of laws that are regulated by Article I, section 20. The action of the police officer here was not taken under a law that either directly or indirectly classifies license check inquiries or creates privileges or immunities for persons affected by those inquiries. Thus, Article I, section 20, is immaterial to the outcome of this case.
The guarantee under Article I, section 20, “reaches forbidden inequality in the administration of laws under delegated authority as well as in legislative enactments.” State v. Clark, 291 Or 231, 239, 630 P2d 810, cert den, 454 US 1084 (1981). That delegated authority could be conferred by different types of laws. For example, the legislature could confer authority on an agent to grant or deny benefits or permissions. Such an enactment violates Article I, section 20, when it empowers the agent to confer privileges or immunities that the legislature itself could not confer directly. See White v. Holman, 44 Or 180, 74 P 933 (1904) (statute violates Article I, section 20, when it authorized a board to grant an exclusive privilege to operate a sailors’ boarding house).
In such a case, the law creates the privilege or immunity (e.g., a license, permit, or legal advantage) and directs the agent to allocate or determine that advantage (e.g., grant or deny the license under particular circumstances). The statutes are replete with laws that create privileges or immunities by directing official action to allow or limit those privileges. For example, professional licensing requirements and *363oversight statutes, local government ordinances to allow zoning variances, and state regulations allowing water appropriations are all laws that create a legal privilege by directing actions by a governmental agent to allow, deny, or limit that entitlement. Those types of laws fit squarely within the scope of Article I, section 20, because they directly delegate authority to grant a privilege. Laws involving the specific authority to create a benefit are tested under Article I, section 20, for whether they permit outcomes that violate the constitutional command by, for example, improperly allocating a privilege or immunity or creating a monopoly.
In other cases, a law separately creates the benefit, advantage, or right that is administered under more broadly delegated authority from the legislature. The contemporary decisions on citizen rights under Article I, section 20, involve this type of benefit-creating law that is administered by an official under that official’s general legal authority. See City of Salem v. Bruner, 299 Or 262, 702 P2d 70 (1985) (administration by police officer of statutes creating different appeal rights under local ordinances defining the authority of a police officer); State v. Freeland, 295 Or 367, 667 P2d 509 (1983), and Clark, 291 Or 231 (administration by district attorney of dual charging system created by statute and constitutional provision under general state statutes defining the authority of a district attorney); State v. Walton, 215 Or App 628, 170 P3d 1122 (2007), rev den, 344 Or 671 (2008) (administration by prosecutor of statutes creating different sanctions for conduct by probationer under state statutes defining the authority of a district attorney).1
In this case, the deputy sheriff exercised authority conferred by statute. See ORS 206.010 (setting out general duties of a sheriff, including authority to “[a]rrest * * * all persons guilty of public offenses”); ORS 204.635(3) (delegating authority to deputy sheriff to “perform any act or duty *364that the principal has”). Those statutes did not specifically authorize the deputy to establish the purported privilege or immunity at stake in this case. The question becomes whether some other law did.
The resulting Article I, section 20, inquiry, as framed by Bruner, is whether “a person is denied some advantage to which he or she would be entitled but for a choice made by a governmental authority.” 299 Or at 268-69 (emphasis added). An entitlement is necessarily legal in character; otherwise, the claim is unenforceable and without legal status. A privilege or immunity, in this entitlement sense, is an advantage that is created or embellished by a constitutional or statutory policy. Cf. id. at 268 (“[T]he fact that two processes exist by which one person may enjoy advantages not available to another is precisely what triggers the Article I, section 20, concerns we addressed in Freeland”).
Thus, I interpret the Clark line of cases to require official consistency when a government official is tasked by law to create or allocate a specific legal right or is authorized by law to administer a privilege or immunity created by a separate law. Where I part company with the dissent is in its assumption that a citizen enjoys a privilege or immunity, in this constitutional sense, to be free of any bad consequence of official action. Under that logic, any arbitrary exercise of official discretion that produces some detriment to a defendant — such as a police officer’s decision to pursue one of two speeding cars — violates Article I, section 20.
In my view, the reach of the provision is not that broad. Instead, a privilege or immunity under Article I, section 20, must be “granted” in the sense of achieving that status by legislative or constitutional enactment; it is only official action with respect to that type of privilege or immunity that is constrained by the provision.2 In this case, there is no law that creates or regulates a privilege or immunity to be free from license plate scrutiny.
*365Thus, defendant does not point to any entitlement created by law that is given to others but not him. Indeed, both the majority and the dissent agree that no person has a legal entitlement under Article I, section 9, to be free from official scrutiny in these circumstances. It is difficult to conclude that defendant has a privilege to obtain what others lack.
I concur in the decision for these separate reasons.
Landau, J., joins in this concurrence.

 Of course, when a law is challenged as granting privileges to a “class of citizens” under Article I, section 20, the law itself creates a privilege or immunity by classifying groups for purposes of advantaging one group and not another. The advantage created by the classification is the privilege or immunity at stake. The question is whether such a benefit-conferring law is also required when an official action is said to violate Article I, section 20, because the action grants a privilege or immunity to a “citizen.”

 Our cases also apply Article I, section 20, to classifications of citizens made by a rule or practice of administrative agencies. See, e.g., Tanner v. OHSU, 157 Or App 502, 971 P2d 435 (1998) (agency classification with respect to employee benefit policy). This case does not involve that type of “law.”