Oregonians in Action is a non profit lobbying organization that leads the fight for land-use regulatory reform and protection for private property rights. OIA authored two ballot measures in 1998: one to require landowner notification and another to give citizens the right to petition for legislative review of bad state regulations. In 2004, OIA passed Measure 37, a law that requires compensation to landowners for losses they suffer from regulatory takings.
Oregon Court of Appeals Gives Dorothy English Justice at Last
October 7th, 2009
Today, the Oregon Court of Appeals
entered a judgment for nearly $195,000 to the estate of Dorothy English.
This judgment represents the attorney fees and costs which Dorothy incurred in
fighting her case against Multnomah County at the Oregon Court of
Appeals. In an earlier decision, the Oregon Court of Appeals had awarded
Dorothy's estate $1,150,000 in compensation against Multnomah County, and also
found that the estate was entitled to the attorney fees and costs incurred in
fighting the Measure 37 claim in Multnomah County Circuit Court. These
fees and costs are expected to exceed $300,000.
In sum, Multnomah County will be
paying Dorothy's estate in excess of $2,000,000 as a result of their decision
to make her life miserable and fight every court ruling they lost. That's
what you get for being unreasonable.
Here's how the Court of Appeals
summarized Dorothy's case:
"We emphasize, finally, that, although the services
rendered by English's attorneys were extremely intensive - indeed,
exhaustive - their efforts were necessitated by the county's obdurate refusal
to satisfy the just compensation judgment that had been rendered final by the
county's dismissal of its own appeal from that judgment. It is not unfair
to say that this became a war of attrition that should never have had to have
been fought. In sum, the county's conduct has protracted this litigation,
and created additional work in a case that required prompt resolution due to
English's advanced age and ultimately, after her death during the pendency of
this appeal, the substitution of the personal representative of her estate as
the real party in interest. In the end, English obtained a result that
she accurately describes as 'ensuring recovery of $1.15 million, a complete
victory." (citations to ORS provisions omitted).
Rarely does a court use words like
these to describe a party's conduct in a lawsuit, but Multnomah County made it
a point to fight Dorothy at every step of the way, and now the chickens are
coming home to roost. This case is near its end, and Multnomah County
should cut its losses, pay its debt, and apologize to Dorothy's family for the
way their employees have behaved.
