Court Opinion

ID: 9900483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-18 22:13:50.923119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:05.835397
License: Public Domain

16                    March 29, 2023               No. 145

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                  Christina MARTIN,
                 Petitioner-Respondent,
                            v.
          DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES,
                 Respondent-Appellant.
              Douglas County Circuit Court
                 20CV34519; A175697

     Kathleen E. Johnson, Judge.
     Argued and submitted March 11, 2022.
   Robert M. Wilsey, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for appellant. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
   George W. Kelly argued the cause and filed the brief for
respondent.
  Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, and Powers, Judge, and
Hellman, Judge.
     POWERS, J.
  General and supplemental judgments reversed and
remanded.
Cite as 325 Or App 16 (2023)                               17

        POWERS, J.

        In this appeal arising out of a challenge to a final
order in an other than contested case, the Department of
Human Services (DHS) asserts that the trial court erred
in remanding the founded disposition of physical abuse.
Applying the standard of review set out in Querbach v. Dept.
of Human Services, 369 Or 786, 790, 512 P3d 432 (2022) (dis-
cussing and applying ORS 183.484 to review orders in other
than contested cases), we reverse and remand.

         After receiving a report that petitioner had physi-
cally and mentally abused her daughter, I, DHS began an
investigation that resulted in a notice of a founded deter-
mination of physical abuse. Petitioner sought administra-
tive review, and DHS ultimately concluded in a final order
that there was reasonable cause to believe that petitioner
physically abused I. DHS explained: “The documentation,
including witness statements, corroborating evidence,
and clear, credible disclosures support that you forcibly
restricted [I’s] breathing by sitting on her and repeatedly
pouring water on her face as a form of discipline on multiple
occasions.”

         Petitioner then sought review of DHS’s order in cir-
cuit court. See ORS 183.484(1) (outlining process for judicial
review of orders in other than contested cases). The trial
court held a hearing and heard testimony from a number of
witnesses, including the DHS investigator and the investi-
gator’s supervisor, petitioner and her husband, and a DHS
safety consultant. Ultimately, the court concluded that sub-
stantial evidence supported DHS’s determination that peti-
tioner committed the alleged conduct—straddling I on the
floor and pouring water on her face in a way that restricted
I’s breathing—however, the court remanded DHS’s deter-
mination of physical abuse for further investigation into
the “depth and length of the impairment, the severity of
the impairment so that the determination can be made of
whether or not it constitutes physical abuse,” and entered
a general judgment to that effect. Subsequently, the trial
court entered a supplemental judgment awarding petitioner
attorney fees and costs.
18                      Martin v. Dept. of Human Services

         DHS appeals, arguing that the trial court erred
when it remanded its founded disposition because sub-
stantial evidence supports its determination. While this
appeal was under advisement, the Supreme Court decided
Querbach, which clarified the standard for determining
whether a report of abuse is “founded” and reiterated the
reviewing court’s role in reviewing founded orders. Rejecting
the petitioner’s argument that a founded determination of
abuse required probable cause to believe that abuse had
occurred, the court concluded that a founded determination
means that there is reasonable cause to believe that the
abuse occurred and that “reasonable cause” means “a sub-
jectively and objectively reasonable belief, given all of the
circumstances and based on specific and articulable facts.”
Id. at 789-90 (quoting OAR 413-015-1010(2)(a) and OAR 413-
015-0115(58) (internal quotation marks omitted)). The court
explained that founded determinations “are not determina-
tions that petitioner in fact abused the children in the ways
that were alleged, but rather that DHS had ‘reasonable
cause to believe’ that he had done so—meaning that, given
the evidence in the record, an objectively and subjectively
reasonable person could believe that petitioner had abused
the two children in the ways alleged.” Querbach, 369 Or at
804 (emphasis omitted).
         Important to this case, the court explained that a
circuit court’s role in reviewing such founded determina-
tions under ORS 183.484(5) is to determine “whether sub-
stantial evidence in the record ‘viewed as a whole’ supports
the agency’s determinations, and * * * that standard is based
on whether that record ‘would permit a reasonable person
to make that finding.’ ” Querbach, 369 Or at 803 (quoting
ORS 183.484(5)(c)). We conclude in this case that, viewing
the record as a whole, a reasonable person could make a
finding that petitioner physically abused I by straddling her
and pouring water on her face such that I reported that she
could not breathe. Accordingly, because the trial court erred
in remanding the founded disposition of physical abuse, we
reverse and remand both the general and supplemental
judgments.
         General and supplemental judgments reversed and
remanded.