Court Opinion

ID: 9583688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:41:15.036605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:36.124250
License: Public Domain

SCHWAB, C. J.,
dissenting.
The unusual gender-change aspect of this case may conceal the breadth of the majority’s holding — that every time a circuit court orders that a person’s name be changed, the circuit court also has jurisdiction to order that the person’s birth certificate be altered to reflect the new name. My fundamental disagreement vdth this holding is: The majority considers a birth certificate to be a record of the facts as they presently exist; as I read ORS ch 432, a birth certificate is a record of the facts as they were at the time of birth. It *321follows, in my view, that a subsequent change in the facts is no basis for altering a birth certificate unless the legislature has expressly so provided.
The legislature has authorized alteration of birth certificates in very limited situations: when children are adopted, ORS 109.310,109.400 and 432.415; when the parents of an illegitimate child marry, ORS 432.425; and when parents’ names are changed by court order, ORS 33.430. None of these statutes aid the majority’s holding. Their presence more likely compels the opposite conclusion, since the more likely implication arising from statutory authority to alter birth certificates in specific situations is that the authority does not otherwise exist.
In the broad grant of jurisdiction to enable courts to keep all birth certificates currently accurate, the majority relies upon ORS 432.135 which refers to alteration of birth certificates being subject "to the order of the county court or any other court of competent jurisdiction.” Consistent with my understanding of the statutory scheme of ORS ch 432 — that a birth certificate is a record of the facts as they were at the time of birth — I would hold that ORS 432.135 only empowers courts to order alteration of birth certificates that do not accurately reflect the facts as they were at the time of birth.
Were the only interests at stake those of the one individual involved in this case, I would be inclined to join the majority. But in extending a helping hand to this one individual, the majority may be converting this state’s vital-records program into a census program that must always be kept up to date. That is too sweeping an act of judicial legislation for me to join for the sake of one individual.
For the foregoing reasons I respectfully dissent.