Court Opinion

ID: 9581954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:20:45.676024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:21.507879
License: Public Domain

CARSON, J.,
dissenting.
The majority has concluded that the Bar is a “state agency” for purposes of the inspection provisions of the Public Records Law. In so concluding, the majority has erred. Therefore, I dissent.
The majority is correct in asserting that the Bar is subject to the inspection provisions of the Public Records Law. ORS 9.010(1). It also is correct in observing that the procedure under the inspection provisions creates a two-track system, with the initial determination of disclosure falling upon either the Attorney General, ORS 192.450, or a district attorney, ORS 192.460. But the majority is incorrect when it seeks “to fit this square peg — the bar — into the most appropriate round hole in the Public Records Law.”
The majority’s struggle is unnecessary, including the fleeting reference to inconclusive legislative history that preceded the application of the inspection provisions to the Bar by several years and the resort to statutory interpretation tools. For inspection-provision purposes, the legislature defined a broad category (“public body”) in ORS 192.410(1) that has three identifiable components:
*3131. “every state officer, agency, department, division, bureau, board and commission” (defined by ORS 192.410(2) as “state agency”);
2. “every county and city governing body, school district, special district, municipal corporation, and any board, department, commission, council, or agency thereof;” and
3. “any other public agency of this state.”
The legislature then assigned “state agency” inspections to the Attorney General for determination and “public-body-other-than-a-state-agency” inspections to a district attorney. I contend that the Bar comfortably fits in the third component of ORS 192.410(1)1 and is, therefore, a public body other than a state agency. Such being the case, the initial inspection determination should reside with a district attorney and not with the Attorney General.
I suspect that the majority is provoked into creating a mountain of statutory interpretation from a definitional molehill for two reasons: The will-o’-the-wisp character of the term “state agency” and the seemingly ever-changing status of the Bar. “State agency” means whatever the legislature says it means; its breadth or narrowness fluctuates according to the legislative definition.2 Cf. ORS 192.005(7) (“ ‘state agency’ means any state officer, department, board, commission or court created by the Constitution or statutes of this state * * * [but] does not include the Legislative Assembly or its committees, officers and employes”); ORS 192.072(l)(b) (“ ‘state agency’ includes any state officer, department, board, commission or court, the Legislative Assembly, its committees, officers and employes”); ORS 171.133 (“ ‘state agency’ means every state agency whose costs are paid wholly or in *314part from funds held in the State Treasury, except the Legislative Assembly, the courts and their officers and committees”); ORS 183.310(1) (“ ‘agency’ means any state board, commission, department, or division thereof, or officer authorized by law to make rules or to issue orders, except those in the legislative and judicial branches”).
Although once legislatively denominated “an agency of the state,” Oregon Laws 1935, chapter 28, section 1, the Bar now is denominated “a public corporation and an instrumentality of the Judicial Department of the government of the State of Oregon.” ORS 9.010(1); Or Laws 1965, ch 461, § 1. By legislative direction the Bar is a “public corporation” and no longer an “agency of the state.”
Finally, the majority’s reliance on legislative history to establish a state-wide versus local dichotomy ignores the third component — the “catchall” component — which is assigned to the district attorney for initial determination. Likewise, the majority’s reliance on a statutory interpretation falls short of supporting its conclusion. The reliance on the assertion that “includes” is “illustrative” rather than “exclusive” may help the legislative interpreter in some cases. But here, three separate components are created by the legislative definition and one component (“state agency”) clearly is a subset of'the full category (“public body”). Allowing the “includes” language to devour the third component is incorrect and unnecessary. If, as contended by the majority, there is only a local government and a state-wide government, then the legislatively created “any other public agency of the state” is vaporized by the use of a term characterized as “illustrative.”
I do not contend that the conclusion reached by the majority (and the Attorney General, the Marion County Circuit Court, and the Court of Appeals) is irrational. It is incorrect. There is no need to resort to a single presentation to a legislative committee or statutory construction when the legislature has stated its position. The majority has indeed fit its square peg into a round hole by resort to the old adage: “If it doesn’t fit, get a bigger hammer.”

 The third component is correctly characterized by the Court of Appeals as a “catchall” enumeration. State ex rel Frohnmayer v. Oregon State Bar, 91 Or App 690, 694 n 4, 756 P2d 689 (1988).

“ ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
“ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
“ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ ” Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Macmillan and Co. 1872, p 124.