Court Opinion

ID: 9780684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 02:25:57.597349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:10.587965
License: Public Domain

LIPSCOMB, S. J.,
dissenting.
I have no quarrel with any of the facts recited, nor with the inferences drawn from those facts, in the majority opinion. My disagreement is limited to the legal conclusions *194reached by the majority in applying the statutory exemption contained in former ORS 192.555(2)(a) (2007) to these facts and inferences.
As the majority opinion states:
“[T]he only inference that this record can support is that Conner relayed his suspicion that defendant was suspected of a violation of the law (by way of giving the bank the ‘Notice of Intent to Seize’ that referenced a criminal forfeiture statute), and the bank’s actions were based on Conner’s suspicion, not on the independent suspicion of anyone employed at the bank.”
249 Or App at 188 (emphasis in original). That inference is unobjectionable. The conclusion then drawn by the majority opinion when applying the legislative exemption from the confidentiality provisions of the financial records laws to that inference, however, is simply inconsistent with the actual language of the statute itself.
“We conclude that the more natural reading of the text of the statute is that the bank (through one or more of its agents) must have an independent suspicion and that the suspicion of law enforcement agents cannot substitute for such an independent suspicion.”

Id.

In so concluding, the majority opinion effectively inserts the word “independently” into the actual language of the statute so as to make the statutory exemption apply only to independent suspicions. The actual language of the statute, however, does not limit the exception to “independently” suspected violations of the law. The legislative language is specifically unqualified: “any suspected violation of the law” is declared to be sufficient to trigger the legislative exception to the confidentiality statutes. The legislature’s presumably deliberate use of the word “any” when applied to “suspected violation of the law” is a clear legislative determination that the applicable class of suspected violations is not limited or restricted to certain specific types of suspected violations; “any” suspected violation of the law is sufficient to meet the statutory criteria. That is what the word “any” means in plain, natural, and ordinary English; without restriction or limitation.
*195Yet, despite this deliberate legislative use of the modifier “any,” the majority concludes that only an “independent suspicion” meets the statutory criteria of “any suspected violation of law.” And, more specifically, the majority opinion concludes that, when a bank employee’s own suspicion is derived from a Notice of Intent to Seize submitted by a police officer that references a criminal forfeiture statute, it does not qualify for the statutory exemption allowing disclosures “concerning any suspected violation of law” because it is not sufficiently “independent.”1
With respect, I submit that not only is this conclusion unsupported by any plain, natural, or ordinary usage of the English language, but it is also inconsistent with any modern Oregon legal precedent.
It is our judicial duty to defer to the legislature’s unambiguous use of the language it actually employs in crafting the statutes that set forth the regulatory policy of this state. Ever since PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 859 P2d 1143 (1993), our Supreme Court has made it clear that the proper role of any Oregon court is to interpret any statute as the legislature has written it, neither inserting anything that has been omitted, nor omitting anything that has been inserted. Id. at 610-12. In my opinion, inserting any additional modifier, such as “independent” or “independently,” into the legislature’s own unambiguous choice of phrase, “any suspected violation of the law,” is legally insupportable in this case.
I would reverse the trial court’s decision and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with Oregon law.

 One potential unintended consequence of the majority’s decision in this case may be that the bank and its employee might now become civilly liable to its customer, defendant in this case, for violating the confidentiality of his banking records, and thereby depriving him of the use of the substantial amount of cash seized from his safe deposit box by the police. See generally former OES 192.590 (civil liability for willful or negligent violation of hanking privacy laws).