Archive for February, 2008

By Pete Springer

OPB.com

Portland, OR
February 25, 2008

Negotiations to release documents related to the Portland Archdiocese clergy sex abuse cases have broken down and will likely end up in mediation next month. Pete Springer reports.

Attorney Kelly Clark is representing more than a hundred abuse victims. He says nearly a year after reaching a legal settlement with the Archdiocese of Portland, very few documents have actually been released.

Clark says the release of the documents was key to settling the sex abuse lawsuits.

Kelly Clark: “We want the public to be able to learn what the archdiocese of Portland knew about sex abuse and when they knew it.  That’s all we’re saying, release the documents you said you’d release.”

However, there is no specific deadline for releasing these documents.

A spokesman for the archdiocese says they haven’t released everything because some of the documents are under a protective order and contain names and medical records of priests not involved in the lawsuit.

Clark withdrew from negotiations with the Archdiocese after it requested full names of abuse victims -- rather than just initials -- be used in court documents.  

The case heads back to court in March and will enter mediation in April.

A Northwest Portland couple who won $750,000 in damages in the first trial of a Measure 37 property development claim saw it disappear Thursday when a judge dismissed the case.

The ruling may foreshadow the fate of several pending land-use lawsuits.

Judge Jerry Hodson of Multnomah County Circuit Court essentially reversed himself. He had ruled in November after a six-day trial that county and state land-use laws restricted the use of Larry and Laura Luethe’s property and reduced its value.

The couple filed a Measure 37 claim in 2005, seeking to build a nine-lot subdivision off Northwest Skyline Boulevard under rules that existed when they acquired the property in 1973. Multnomah County turned them down, so the couple filed suit in 2006.

The case went to trial in November 2007, and the judge initially ruled in their favor. But Hodson ruled Thursday that Measure 49, which rolled back development rights allowed under the earlier measure, could be applied retroactively and made the Luethe’s case moot.

Voters approved Measure 49 in November, and it took effect Dec. 6.

"I recognize the seeming unfairness of applying a new law to a party who has relied upon existing law in a pending action," Hodson wrote. Nonetheless, the ballot language of Measure 49 clearly intended it to be applied retroactively to Measure 37 cases, he said.

The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled in other cases that the Legislature may retroactively amend state statute, the judge said.

The law firm representing the Luethes called the ruling a disappointment. The judge’s opinion was based on Supreme Court rulings that don’t apply to the Luethes’ "unique circumstances," attorney Mark O’Donnell said in a news release. He said the decision is ripe for appeal.

Larry Luethe said he didn’t know what to make of the judge’s decision. "He was in our favor all along, then all of a sudden -- bingo -- he rules against us."

Attorneys for the state and county filed motions asking Hodson to dismiss the Luethe case after Measure 49 took effect. He sided with them.

Similar rulings might await several other pending Measure 37 lawsuits, said Ralph Bloemers, an attorney with CRAG law center in Portland. Measure 37 claimants are "being encouraged to throw good money after bad" in pursuing their claims, he said.

They should proceed under the development standards allowed under Measure 49, he said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A Multnomah County judge has ruled against a Portland couple in a land-use case that could be a taste of things to come in Oregon’s long-running struggle with the issue.