Court Opinion

ID: 9790218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:49:06.69764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:40.277787
License: Public Domain

PETERSON, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The majority opinion reaches a desirable result, a result which is consistent with the ethereal standard of “fairness,” and which is consistent with the aim the statute seeks to achieve. But I am unwilling to pay the price that the majority is willing to pay to attain a desired result.
I agree that the decision the majority reaches is consistent with an implicit unstated purpose of the statute: “To give the public body timely notice of the tort claim and to allow its officers an opportunity to investigate matters promptly and ascertain all necessary facts” (291 Or at 81-82). But that conclusion is reached at the expense of an express requirement of the statute — an express requirement adopted by the legislature to attain that very same goal — and by reading out of the statute the express requirements that the notice must be given “* * * either personally or by certified mail, return receipt requested * * * “ and that “a notice of claim * * * which is presented in any other manner * * * is invalid * * * .”
Because the majority does not purport to construe an ambiguous statute, there is no need to look behind the statute to determine the legislative intent. The statute is clear on its face. Applying the plain, unambiguous meaning of the statute attains the underlying, unstated purpose of the statute. The majority says, in effect, “Our construction also attains the stated purpose of the statute.” But that analysis merely substitutes our judgment for the legislative judgment. We do not legislate.
Nor is this a case in which a literal application of the statute frustrates the purpose of the statute. As stated above, the application of the statute according to its plain meaning achieves that end. I do not deny that proper *92judicial construction of a statute “* * * requires recognition and implementation of the underlying legislative purpose, a sensitive process which must accommodate society’s claims and demands reflected in that purpose. To do this, as Roger Traynor puts it, we need ‘literate, not literal’ judges, lest a court make a construction within the statute’s letter, but beyond its intent.”1 But one does not (or should not, I should say) need to construe an unambiguous statute.
My difference with the majority opinion is over the meaning of the changes made by the 1977 legislature to ORS 30.275. The changes read as follows:
“* * * Notice of claim shall be served upon the Attorney General or local public body’s representative for service of process either personally or by certified mail, return receipt requested. A notice of claim which does not contain the information required by this subsection, or which is presented in any other manner than herein provided, is invalid, except that failure to state the amount of compensation or other relief demanded does not invalidate the notice.” (Emphasis added.)
The majority correctly points out that in Urban Renewal Agency v. Lackey, 275 Or 35, 549 P2d 657 (1976), this court applied the theory of substantial compliance to a prior version of the Tort Claims Act. The Court of Appeals did likewise in Yunker v. Mathews, 32 Or App 551, 574 P2d 696 (1978), and Croft v. Gulf & West./Highway Comm., 12 Or App 507, 506 P2d 541 (1973). The majority also correctly points out, “This court has also applied the theory of substantial compliance in the context of notice requirements in other statutory schemes [citing cases].” (Majority opinion, n 2). However, the key factor that must be kept in mind is that none of the statutes involved in the cases which the majority cites, including the predecessors to ORS 30.275(1), contained clauses comparable to the last sentence of ORS 30.275(1), and none of these cases involved amendments which were designed to avoid the very result reached by the majority opinion in this case.
The majority, despite the lack of any ambiguity in the statute, then embarks upon a quest to determine whether the legislature, by adding the final sentence *93quoted above, intended that the theory of substantial compliance would no longer apply to ORS 30.275(1). The majority ascribes the following purpose for the addition of the final sentence. “The language appears to have been intended to confine the doctrine of substantial compliance within narrow limits, but not necessarily to eliminate it.” (291 Or at 81). The majority also states that “the margin for divergence from strict compliance is narrow.” (291 Or at 82). I believe that the purpose of the amendment was to eliminate the application of the doctrine of substantial compliance to ORS 30.275(1).
The clear meaning of the words, “in any other manner than herein provided,” forecloses the question. We need not look behind the statute. But even if the legislative history is examined, it reflects the intention that substantial compliance no longer would be adequate to meet the mandate of ORS 30.275(1).
The reference in the majority opinion (291 Or at 81) to the testimony before the legislature concerning the “tendency by the court to relax the notice requirement,” likely refers to the Oregon cases cited above, and likely reflects the intention that the manner of giving notice be as provided in the statute and in no other way. This is borne out by the statute itself. ORS 30.275(1) concludes with a clear statement (a) that a notice “which does not contain the information required” is invalid, and (b) that a notice “which is presented in any other manner” is invalid. There is a specific exception that a “failure to state the amount of compensation or other relief demanded does not invalidate the notice.” That language indicates to me that except for those exceptions, no other variations from the statute were to be permitted. The legislature is charged with the knowledge that the Supreme Court, previous to the 1977 session, had ruled that notice actually received by regular mail is sufficient even though the statute calls for notice by certified mail. Stroh v. SAIF, 261 Or 117, 492 P2d 472 (1972). With this knowledge in mind, the legislature did not stop with the requirement that the notice be sent by certified mail. After making the certified mail requirement it then added the language: “a notice * * * which is presented in any other manner than provided in this *94section, is invalid, * * *.”2 The legislature made its intent clear. Surely, it is not necessary for the legislature to re-enact the amendment to ORS 30.275(1) in 1981 and then add “and this time we really mean it,” for the court to give effect to the clear legislative intent. The conclusion is obvious that, rather than giving sub silentio approval to the recent appellate court decisions cited by plaintiff, the legislature made a deliberate choice to repudiate the substantial compliance approach of the courts and to clearly express its requirement that there be strict compliance with the notice requirements of the Tort Claims Act. The Court of Appeals correctly stated, “Unlike the situation in Stroh v. SAIF, 261 Or 117, 492 P2d 472 (1972), here the legislative purpose that notice conform to the statutory requirements is clearly stated. Those requirements were not met. See Dowers Farms v. Lake County, 288 Or 669, 607 P2d 1361 (1980).” Brown v. Portland School Dist. #1, 48 Or App 571, 574, 617 P2d 665 (1980).
Certainly the plain meaning of the final sentence of ORS 30.275(1) does not support the majority’s conclusion; nor does the legislative history support its conclusion that the legislature “intended to confine the doctrine of substantial compliance within narrow limits” (291 Or at 81). I view the majority’s holding as an unwarranted judicial excursion into the legislature’s statute-making prerogative. Let me illustrate with this hypothetical scenario.
[The time: June, 1977.
The place: State Legislature, Salem, Oregon. An attorney (A) in the office of the Legislative Counsel Committee is hard at work. An angry legislator (L) enters.]
L: Are you familiar with these cases of Urban Renewal,3 Yunker4 and Croft?5
A: No, I’m not. Why do you ask?
*95L: They hold that so long as the public body gets notice, that the written notice requirement of ORS 30.275(1) has been met. I want you to prepare an amendment that the notice has to be given either by personal service or by certified mail, return receipt requested, and no other way!
A: Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll draft an amendment requiring those methods of service, and those only, and I’ll add language to the effect that service in any other manner is invalid. That should do it.
L: Good!
[Same place, four years later, June, 1981. A is sitting at the same desk. L enters, angrier than in 1977, carrying a sheaf of papers.]
L: You sure know how to draft statutes! Do you know what the Supreme Court just did?
A: No, what’d they do?
L: In this Brown case [L throws sheaf of papers on A’s desk] they held that service by first class mail was O.K., so long as it was received. They said that we intended to “confine the doctrine of substantial compliance within narrow limits.”
A: How could they hold that? I drafted that statute as tightly as I could, saying that presentation in any other manner was invalid. I even listed the only two exceptions [amount of compensation and relief demanded] which need not be strictly complied with. What more could I have said?
L: I don’t know! But I want you to prepare an amendment saying what I meant to say four years ago, clearly and unequivocally.
A: Gosh, I’ll try. I suppose I could say something along these lines:
“A notice of claim which is presented in any other manner than herein provided is invalid, and we mean it!”
Or, I could say:
“A notice which is presented in any manner other than personally or by certified mail, return receipt requested, is invalid. No service is valid which is presented by regular mail, by registered mail, by parcel post, by telegram, by United Parcel Service, Federal Express, or any manner other than personal service or certified mail, return receipt requested.”
L: Then do it!
By this scenario I seek to make two points. First, the statute is clear on its face. It is neither necessary nor *96appropriate to resort to legislative intent. Second, it is difficult, if not impossible, to make the statute any clearer than it is.
In Dowers Farms 6 we held that the statute barred recovery even though the county had actual notice of the claim, inspected the plaintiffs field, and investigated the claim. We held that the plaintiff was barred even though the purpose of the Tort Claims Act [quoting the majority at 81-82: “to give the public body timely notice of the tort claim and to allow its officers an opportunity to investigate matters promptly and ascertain all necessary facts”] had been met, saying:
“The legislative requirement that written notice be caused to be given to the county clerk in a claim against the county is not a difficult one with which to comply * * 288 Or at 686.
The majority states (291 Or at 81) that “[t]he sufficiency of the notice given must be determined with the object of the statute in mind and technically deficient claims should not be barred where the purpose of the statute is served.” That cannot be the test, for implicit in that test is the proposition that even though the statute is clear, we look behind it to see if the statutory purpose has been met. That rule of statutory construction is not only new, but it makes this judicial body into a legislative body in which we determine not whether the requirements of the statute have been met, but whether the purposes which underlie the statute have been met.
In a recent dissenting opinion, one member of this court opined:7
“Even were there no statute, however, the rationale offered by the majority for its new rule requiring disclosure of recorded grand jury testimony is no more than that it is required ‘in the furtherance of justice.’ Whenever an appellate court relies solely upon a phrase as amorphous as that, red flags should fly and sirens should sound because it is usually a signal that the court is accomplishing judicial will rather than legislative or constitutional intent. * * *” 290 Or at 602.
The statement of a rule that when the policy underlying the statute is satisfied, the statute is deemed complied with, is as amorphous as the phrase “in the furtherance of justice,” and is unique, dangerously so. That conclusion *97assumes a desirable result, rather than reasons toward it, and converts what the legislature said, clearly and directly, into what the majority believes the legislature would have said or should have said, had this case been before it.
Arthur W. Murphy, in a recent Columbia Law Review article, stated:8
“The job of statutory interpretation will never be easy. On the one hand the court cannot restrict itself to the literal words of the statute. Yet, as Learned Hand has said:
“ ‘When a judge tries to find out what the government would have intended which it did not say, he puts into its mouth things which he thinks it ought to have said, and that is very close to substituting what he himself thinks right. Let him beware, however, or he will usurp the office of government, even though in a small way he must do so in order to execute its real commands at all.’ Whether in a given case the court should take upon itself the task of ‘legislating’ or leave the job to the legislature itself involves a very sophisticated and delicate judgment about the legal system and the relationships between our legal institutions. On the one extreme there can be a serious question of legitimacy and on the other a serious risk of stagnation. About all that can be said with certainty is that such questions cannot be answered by the simple-minded formulae often advanced, including the plain meaning rule.”
I concede everything the majority says regarding the purpose of the notice provisions of the Tort Claims Act. I concede that my construction of the statute makes it a “trap for the deserving but unwary claimant” (majority opinion at 82). But no more so than many other statutory requirements. I am unwilling to pay the price the majority is willing to pay, sacrificing long-established rules of statutory construction on the altar of a cause of a “deserving but unwary claimant,” and converting every trial judge into a person who, in deciding whether a statute is to be applied, is required to follow, not the clear terms of the statute, but the unstated purpose which underlies it. I am not equal to that task. Therefore, by this opinion, I feebly raise my flag and sound my siren, not because a deserving claimant wins but because, in doing so, we are *98interring what I deem to be the cardinal rule that clear and unambiguous statutes should be applied according to their terms, unless an absurd result is reached thereby. We do not construe that which needs no construction.

 Aldisert, The Judicial Process 170 (1976).

 The addition of this language distinguishes this case from Stroh v. SAIF, 261 Or 117, 492 P2d 472 (1972).

 Urban Renewal Agency v. Lackey, 275 Or 35, 549 P2d 657 (1976).

 Yunker v. Mathews, 32 Or App 551, 574 P2d 696 (1978).

 Croft v. Gulf & West./Highway Comm., 12 Or App 507, 506 P2d 541 (1973).

 Dowers Farms v. Lake County, 288 Or 669, 607 P2d 1361 (1980).

 Tanzer, J., dissenting in State v. Hartfield, 290 Or 583, 624 P2d 588 (1981).

 A. Murphy, Old Maxims Never Die: The “Plain-Meaning Rule” and Statutory Interpretation in the “Modem”Federal Courts, 75 Colum L Rev 1299, 1317 (1975).