Court Opinion

ID: 9792374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:28:26.523997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:42.385969
License: Public Domain

LENT, C. J.,
dissenting.
The majority assumes, arguendo, at footnote 2 that the judgment is not set forth as a separate document as required by ORCP 70 A. Having so assumed, the majority excuses the failure to comply with the mandate of the rule by comparing it with the analogous federal rule. Noting that the federal rule makes the judgment effective only if there is compliance, but that that provision is absent from the state rule, the majority finds that our rule should be construed differently because ORCP 70 B.(2) makes effectiveness dependent upon “entry” by the clerk of court.
*712What is it that can become effective by reason of having been entered by the clerk pursuant to ORCP 70 B.(2)? It is a judgment; and what is a judgment? ORCP 70 A. answers that it is a “writing plainly labelled as a judgment and set forth in a separate document.” This writing does not comply with the command of the rule; therefore, its entry by a clerk cannot make it effective.
The majority is unwilling to uphold the defendant’s contention that this “judgment” is set forth in a separate document, and rightly so, for that would run counter to the obvious purpose and text of the rule.
The concurring opinion’s implicit premise is that the writing in this case is not set forth as a separate document, but the writer, just as did the majority, takes note that the mandate of the rule is constantly ignored and to enforce it might have adverse consequences for others not party to this case. The exhortation for judges and lawyers to follow the rule in the future concedes the present failure to comply and should lead the writer to part company with the majority, not to join it.
If the rule is a bad one it should be changed. Until that time it should be followed. The failure of this court to enforce the rule in this case will mean that the rule can never be enforced, unless the next time a failure to comply with the rule is before us, we confess that expediency in this case caused us to construe our way around the rule and that our result here was an aberration.
I dissent.