Garcia v. Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles

99 P.3d 316, 195 Or. App. 604, 2004 Ore. App. LEXIS 1317

• Court: Court of Appeals of Oregon
• Decided: October 13, 2004
• Docket: 0310007; A124357
• Status: Published

Opinions

LINDER, J.

This appeal presents what promises to be the first of many questions that will arise for courts in the wake of the enactment of House Bill (HB) 2646 (2003), which comprehensively revised the statutes governing judgments.¹ Under HB 2646, many judgments are now designated “limited,” “general,” or “supplemental,” and trial judges and local court administrators are required to include those designations in judgment labels and in register notations.² For the most part, the legislature appears not to have anticipated that the new statutory scheme would be implemented imperfectly—for example, that the labels on judgments might not reflect the new designations or might reflect them incorrectly and that register notations might be incomplete or wrong. Consequently, we are presented with the issue that arises in this case.

What happened here is undramatic. The trial judge, after resolving all of the claims in this case, signed and filed a judgment document labeled “general judgment.” The judgment document also awarded $385 in costs to the prevailing party. After receiving it, the court administrator noted in the court register that a judgment document had been filed. In making that notation, however, the court administrator made a mistake. Rather than describe the judgment as a general judgment, the court administrator described it as a limited judgment.³ The question under HB 2646 is the following: Does that clerical error defeat our jurisdiction over the appeal?⁴ The answer requires untangling the new statutory scheme governing judgments and attempting to discern the legislature’s intent on a question that it did not address expressly.

The starting point, as for all questions that require us to determine legislative intent, is the text and context of the pertinent statutes. PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610-11, 859 P2d 1143 (1993). Context, in turn, includes “the preexisting common law and the statutory framework within which the law was enacted.” Denton and Denton, 326 Or 236, 241, 951 P2d 693 (1998) (citation omitted). Because significant features of the preexisting statutory framework relating to judgments were retained in HB 2646, that framework provides an appropriate starting point.

Under the preexisting law, for a judgment to be enforceable and appealable, two basic requirements of form had to be satisfied: (1) the judgment decision had to be set forth in a written document, and (2) the written document had to be labeled a “judgment.” Former ORCP 70 (2001), repealed by Or Laws 2003, ch 576, § 580 (ORCP 70 A provided that “[e] very judgment shall be in writing plainly titled as a judgment and set forth in a separate document.”). An oral pronouncement of the court’s decision, even if transcribed, was not an enforceable and appealable judgment because it was not reduced to a written document. Kay v. David Douglas Sch. Dist. No. 40, 303 Or 574, 579, 738 P2d 1389 (1987). Even when the judgment was memorialized in a written document, the written document was not an appealable and enforceable judgment if it was not plainly labeled a “judgment.” City of Portland v. Carriage Inn, 296 Or 191, 194, 673 P2d 531 (1983) (judgment must be labeled “judgment” to be effective). Of significance here, as long as the document was labeled a “judgment,” the “plainly labeled” requirement was satisfied, even if the label otherwise included information that was inaccurate or meaningless. See Ensley v. Fitzwater, 293 Or 158, 162 n 2, 645 P2d 1062 (1982) (because “judgment” and “order” are different things with separate meanings, label “judgment order” should not be used, but defect did not prevent appeal of judgment); Haas v. Painter, 62 Or App 719, 721 n 1, 662 P2d 768, rev den, 295 Or 297 (1983) (judgment labeled “judgment order,” although meaningless, did not prevent judgment document from being appealable).

Preexisting law also imposed a procedural requirement for a judgment to be appealable and enforceable. Specifically, the judgment had to be entered in the register. See former ORCP 70 B(2) (“[A] judgment is effective only when entered in the register as provided in this rule.”).⁵ But what constituted “entry"’ was not spelled out in the statute. Former ORCP 70 B(l) stated only that, after a judgment was filed with the court administrator, “notation of the filing shall be entered in the register,” leaving the substance of the notation unspecified. This court construed the statute, however, to require that the notation specifically identify the document filed as “a judgment” rather than as an order or other kind of document. Patrick v. Otteman, 158 Or App 175, 185-86, 974 P2d 217, rev den, 328 Or 594 (1999).

In enacting the 2003 statutory scheme governing judgments, the legislature retained those requirements, codifying them in terms that mirror the preexisting law closely, if not exactly. ORS 18.005(10) defines “judgment document” to mean “a writing in the form provided by ORS 18.038 that incorporates a court’s judgment.” ORS 18.038(1) expressly requires the written judgment document to have the word “judgment” in its title: “A judgment document must be plainly titled as a judgment.” Under ORS 18.082(l)(b) and (c), “entry” remains the procedural event necessary for a judgment document to be enforceable and appealable. And, codifying this court’s holding in Patrick, ORS 18.075(1) expressly identifies the substance of the notation necessary to enter a judgment in the register:

“A judgment is entered in circuit court when a court administrator notes in the register that a judgment document has been filed with the court administrator.”

(Emphasis added.)

In short, under the preexisting statutory scheme, to be enforceable and appealable, a judgment had to be in writing, plainly labeled as a “judgment,” and entered in the register with a notation that a “judgment” had been filed. Under the new statutory scheme, to be enforceable and appealable, a judgment has to be in writing, plainly labeled as a “judgment,” and entered in the register with a notation that a “judgment” has been filed.

If the legislature had done nothing more, other than change, reorganize, or clarify other aspects of the preexisting scheme, the appealability of this judgment would not be in question. It would be a simple matter to presume, as we usually do, that the legislature was aware of former requirements and to conclude that, by keeping them, the legislature intended no change. See, e.g., U.S. National Bank v. Heggemeier, 106 Or App 693, 699, 810 P2d 396 (1991) (given legislature’s presumed knowledge of earlier enactments and case law, and its failure to expressly change the law, court assumed that legislature intended not to change the law).

But drawing that conclusion here is not such a simple matter. With the new statutory scheme, the legislature parted company with past practice by devising a more formal and seemingly intricate scheme of judgment subcategories or “types.” Judgments in many cases now fall into one of three types: limited, general, or supplemental. Those designations distinguish judgments based on, among other things, their timing and their legal effect on the rights and interests of the parties. For example, a limited judgment is rendered before a general judgment and “disposes of at least one but fewer than all claims in the action.” ORS 18.005(13). A general judgment, in contrast, “decides all claims in the action” except those previously decided by a limited judgment or those that may be later decided by a supplement judgment. ORS 18.005(8). And a supplemental judgment is rendered after a general judgment, as authorized by law, and affects a substantial right of a party. ORS 18.005(15).

As a complement to those new categorizations, the statutory scheme also imposes newly created duties on court administrators and trial judges pertaining to the form of judgments and register notations regarding judgment documents. Specifically, in those cases in which a judgment must be either limited, general, or supplemental, the title of the judgment document “must indicate” which it is, ORS 18.038(2); the judge must “ensure” that the title so indicates, ORS 18.052(1); if the title does not so indicate, the court administrator must return the judgment document to the judge without noting its filing in the register, ORS 18.058(2); and, if the title properly indicates the judgment type, the court administrator must note in the register whether the judgment is limited, general, or supplemental, ORS 18.075(2)(b).

The existence of those new requirements and duties, and the legislative history emphasizing their importance, leads the dissent to conclude:

“[T]he legislative history confirms that the legislature created subcategories of judgments, each of which has particular legal consequences. The legislature also expanded the labeling requirement under preexisting law to require that, generally, the judgment document be properly labeled so that those who need information about the judgment will be clearly informed of its nature. Further, the legislature intended that the labeling of a judgment document be a significant procedural requirement. Consequently and in order to effectuate those purposes and intentions, the text and context of ORS 18.075(1) make clear that entry in the register, which serves as a public record and a tool of judicial administration, must accurately indicate the type of judgment that the trial court rendered as reflected in the judgment document that the court filed.”

195 Or App at 635-36 (Brewer, J., dissenting). Thus, the dissent would hold that, “when the administrator does not accurately note in the register the label on the judgment document that the trial court filed, the judgment that the court rendered in the action has yet to be entered.” Id. at 21. That conclusion, in turn, would dictate that the judgment is a nullity—that is, neither enforceable nor appealable. See ORS 18.082(1) (enforceability and appealability of a judgment depend on “entry”).

With respect, the dissent focuses on the wrong question. The question is not whether the purpose of imposing new form and procedural duties pertaining to judgment types would be better effectuated if those duties are accurately performed. The answer to that is, axiomatically, yes. The question to ask, instead, is whether the legislature intended that judgments not be enforceable or appealable if those duties are not accurately performed. In this particular case, that question reduces to whether the legislature intended that effective “entry” in the register depend on a notation not only that a “judgment” document had been filed, but also on an accurate notation of the type of judgment rendered. The dissent’s conclusion on the point is not clearly wrong. But neither is it clearly right. The statutory scheme, its context, and its legislative history equally—if not more strongly—support an opposite conclusion. The question thus narrows to this: as between two reasonable interpretations of the statutory scheme, one of which creates new statutory impediments to the appealability and enforceability of judgments, and the other of which does not, which did the legislature more likely intend? The answer is this: the one that creates fewer impediments to the appealability and enforceability of judgments.

The statutes themselves provide the strongest indication that the legislature did not intend to add to the former requirements for the appealability and enforceability of judgments. As earlier described, the legislature retained all of the former requirements—that a judgment be in writing, be plainly labeled a “judgment,” and be entered in the register ■with a notation of the filing of “a judgment.” That much suggests that the legislature intended to retain those requirements, but not add to them, at least in the absence of some clear contrary indication. See Far West Landscaping v. Modern Merchandising, 287 Or 653, 660, 601 P2d 1237 (1979) (court would not infer that legal effect of judgment should be impaired by failure to perform administrative duties where legislature did not clearly so indicate); U.S. National Bank, 106 Or App at 699 (same).

The structure of the statutes reinforces that conclusion. ORS 18.075, which describes what must be noted in court records on filing of a judgment, consists of 11 subsections. Significantly, only the first of the 11 subsections describes what information must be noted in the register for “entry” of the judgments. It codifies exactly the former requirement that, to be “entered” in the register, the court administrator must note the filing of “a judgment” document in the register. Compare former ORCP 70 B and Patrick, 158 Or App at 185-86, with ORS 18.075(1). The very next subsection requires the court administrator to note in the register “[w]hether the judgment is a limited judgment, a general judgment or a supplemental judgment.” ORS 18.075(2)(b). But, unlike the immediately preceding subsection, subsection (2) does not provide that noting the judgment’s type is required for “entry.” The fact that the legislature omitted any reference to entry in subsection (2) is textual support for the proposition that, however important it may be for the register also to reflect whether the judgment is limited, general, or supplemental, that further information is not legally necessary to accomplish entry. See Emerald PUD v. PP&L, 302 Or 256, 269, 729 P2d 552 (1986) (use of a term in one section and not in another section of the same statute indicates a purposeful omission).⁶

The statute that describes the form of a judgment document, ORS 18.038, similarly separates the title requirements retained from the preexisting law from the new ones. Again, the first subsection of the statute retains the former requirement that a judgment document be “plainly titled as a judgment.” Compare former ORCP 70 A and Carriage Inn, 296 Or at 194, with ORS 18.038(1). Then, in a separate subsection using different language, the legislature also provided that the title must “indicate” whether the judgment is a limited judgment, a general judgment, or a supplemental judgment. ORS 18.038(2). If the legislature intended to expand the preexisting “plain title” requirement so that denominating a judgment as limited, general, or supplemental has the same importance as including the word “judgment” in the title, the logical—and easy—way to do that would be to place those requirements in the same subsection of the statute. But the legislature did not do so. The structure of the statute at least suggests, therefore, that the legislature did not intend the requirement to “indicate” the judgment type to be on a par with the requirement that the word “judgment” be in the document’s title.

Finally, ORS 18.082(6) is also illuminating on the question of whether the legislature intended appealability and enforceability to depend on an accurate description of a judgment’s type (e.g., limited, general, or supplemental) in the judgment document’s title and in the register notation. That provision declares that, if a judgment is entered in the register when its title does not indicate whether it is limited, general, or supplemental, it has the effect of a general judgment:

“If a * * * judgment document is filed with the court administrator that does not indicate whether the judgment is a limited, general or supplemental judgment, and the court administrator fails to comply with ORS 18.058 [requiring the court administrator not to note its filing in the register and instead to return it to the judge who filed it] and makes an entry in the register indicating that a judgment has been filed with the court administrator, the document has the effect of a general judgment entered in circuit court.”

ORS 18.082(6).

Implicit in that provision is the legislature’s recognition that judges and court administrators might fail to carry out their new statutory obligations to indicate, both in a judgment document’s title and in the register, the particular type of judgment involved. The legislature did not, however, provide that nonperformance of those duties rendered a judgment unenforceable or unappealable. To the contrary, the legislature expressly gave such judgments force, by declaring that they have the effect of a general judgment entered in the circuit court. To be sure, that provision anticipates only one of many problems that can arise under the new scheme governing judgments. The legislature did not address, for example, what would happen if the judgment document’s title indicates that it is limited, general, or supplemental but the notation in the register does not. Nor did the legislature address the consequences of a notation in the register that does not match the title, as occurred in this case. But ORS 18.082(6) necessarily confirms one proposition: failure to note the type of judgment document (e.g'., limited, general, or supplemental) in the register and in the title of the judgment document does not prevent an effective “entry” of a judgment in the register and, thus, preclude enforcement and appealability of the judgment.⁷

To the extent that it is necessary to resort to legislative history, the history provides limited help. The commentary to ORS 18.038(1), which requires a judgment document to be “plainly titled as a judgment,” explicitly states that the intent of that provision was to retain the requirement that had been “in the law for many years” that “a judgment be designated a judgment.” Judgments/Enforcement of Judgments: Judgments Report (HB 2646), Oregon Law Commission, Feb 6, 2003, 12 (Judgments Report).⁸ Moreover, it declares the significance of so titling a judgment to be the same “as under existing law.” Id. As already described, the then-existing law was that a judgment document had to have the word “judgment” in its title. The title could otherwise be misleading or wrong without impairing the judgment’s appealability and enforceability as long as that one titling requirement was satisfied.⁹

In contrast, the commentary to ORS 18.038(2), which requires that the title also “indicate” that a judgment document is limited, general, or supplemental if those judgment types apply, says nothing similar. See Judgments Report at 12. That is, nothing in the Judgments Report suggests that the requirement was to have any bearing on the appealability and enforceability of the judgment. At most, the Judgments Report emphasizes the importance of the requirement (i.e., it is “probably the single most significant change in judgment procedure made by the bill”) and the desirability of compliance (i.e., “Every judgment must comply with this requirement.”). Judgments Report at 12 (emphasis in original).¹⁰ But the Judgments Report is silent on whether including the judgment’s type in its title is a new condition precedent of a judgment’s appealability and enforceability. That silence is telling, at least where, nearly simultaneously, the Judgments Report takes pains to note the jurisdictional significance of plainly titling a judgment document as a “judgment.” See id.

The few statements in the Judgments Report pertaining to entry of judgments in the register likewise suggest that the legislature did not intend to create new hurdles for the enforceability and appealability of judgments. Rather, the declared objective was to reduce those hurdles:

“Subsection (1) makes general statements about the effect of entry of a judgment. The most important of these statements is that upon entry, a judgment can be appealed and enforced. This provision is consistent with one of the Work Group’s fundamental decisions: There should never he '‘judgments’ that are entered in the register but that are not appealable and enforceable. This does not mean that an appellate court must entertain an appeal from anything that has been labeled as a judgment and entered in the register. For instance, if a malicious party labeled a grocery list as a general judgment, an oblivious judge signed the document, and the clerk entered it in the register, the appellate court is not somehow compelled to entertain an appeal from a non-decision by the court.”

Id. at 14 (original emphasis and footnotes omitted; other emphasis added). Beyond that, the Judgments Report is unenlightening in explaining what entry requires. It merely paraphrases ORS 18.075(1) by noting that “ ‘[e]ntry’ means that the court administrator has noted in the register that a judgment document has been filed with the court administrator.” Id. The Judgments Report does not even acknowledge the further provisions of ORS 18.075(2), which require the court administrator to note in the register whether the judgment is limited, general, or supplemental, but which do not describe that requirement as an aspect of entry.

In the end, the legislative history reveals more by what it does not discuss than by what it does. Nothing in the Judgments Report suggests that the legislature intended to create new requirements of form or procedure as conditions of enforceability and appealability of judgments. It is difficult to conceive that the legislature would have intended to do so without commenting explicitly on that objective. No such comments exist. Instead, the few threads of pertinent legislative history reflect only the legislature’s intent to retain the preexisting requirements.

The dissent apparently is concerned that, if the new duties for indicating type of judgment in the register (and, perhaps, also in the title of the document) are not an aspect of entry, those new duties will go unenforced. But that approach threatens to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Traditionally, appealability and enforceability of judgments have depended on compliance with only a few requirements of form and procedure. Not all administrative tasks to be performed in connection with judgments—even highly important and mandatory ones—frustrate the enforceability or appealability of judgments if not performed or if performed imperfectly. See, e.g., U.S. National Bank, 106 Or App at 698-99 (court administrator’s failure to give parties statutorily required notice of entry of a judgment does not render the judgment unappealable or otherwise defeat the appellate court’s jurisdiction).

The same conclusion makes sense for information regarding the type of judgment rendered. In terms of a judgment’s enforceability and appealability, nothing turns on the type of judgment rendered. All three judgment types are appealable. See ORS 19.205(1) (“Unless otherwise provided by law, a limited judgment, general judgment or supplemental judgment, as those terms are defined by ORS 18.005, may be appealed as provided in this chapter.”). The procedures for taking an appeal—i.e., what must be filed and when it must be filed—are the same regardless of whether a judgment is limited, general, or supplemental. See generally ORS ch 19. On entry, all three judgment types may be enforced “in the maimer provided by law.” ORS 18.082(1). Thus, whatever other purposes may be served by a notation in the register of the particular type of judgment filed, that notation is not what places a party on notice that an appealable versus non-appealable event has transpired. See generally Patrick, 158 Or App at 186 (notation in the register that a filed document is a “judgment” as opposed to an “order” has implications beyond considerations of reliability and accuracy because appeal rights run from judgments). Nor does that notation alter the steps that a party must take or the time available to pursue an appeal.¹¹

Thus, we hold that a judgment is entered in the register, within the meaning of the pertinent statutes, when the court administrator notes the filing of a “judgment” document. In this case, then, the fact that the judgment document was farther described in the register as a limited rather than a general judgment was a clerical error. It was not, however, a clerical error that renders the judgment a nullity—that is, unenforceable and unappealable.

That is not to conclude, however, that the error in this case or similar ones likely to arise under the new statutory scheme should go uncorrected. That may depend on what harm will flow from the error. It is not obvious in this particular case that the notation of this judgment in the register as a limited rather than a general one will significantly prejudice the rights of the parties or, more generally, mislead the public. But to the extent it will do either, in this case or in others, the notation can and should be corrected. ORCP 71A permits a court to correct clerical mistakes in the record, which includes the register,¹² at any time on its own motion or on the motion of any party.¹³ Nothing prevents us from alerting either the trial court or the parties, or both, to a mistaken register notation of judgment type so that it can be corrected. Indeed, we arguably have inherent authority to direct a trial court to make such a correction. See Gillespie v. Kononen, 310 Or 272, 277-78, 797 P2d 361 (1990) (reserving issue of whether Court of Appeals has inherent supervisory authority over trial judges in matters pertaining to the entry of judgments).¹⁴

Our analysis potentially leads to nearly the same place as the dissent’s: a correction of the register, so that it accurately reflects the type of judgment document that the trial court signed and filed with the court administrator. But our different conclusions as to whether the error prevented “entry” of the judgment has far different consequences where the same or related errors are made but never caught, either because a judgment was not appealed or, if appealed, the error was not noticed.¹⁵ “Entry” of a judgment in the register is the procedural step required for it to be enforceable as well as appealable. Consequently, if a judgment has not been entered in the register in a procedurally effective way, the judgment does not become “the exclusive statement of the court’s decision in the case” that “governs the rights and obligations of the parties,” see ORS 18.082(l)(a); the judgment may not be enforced in the manner provided by law, see ORS 18.082(l)(b); the judgment does not act as the official notice of the court’s decision, see ORS 18.082(l)(d); and the judgment can be set aside by courts other than the court rendering the judgment or a higher court, see ORS 18.082(l)(e). Were the dissent’s analysis correct, mistakes like this one and similar ones in titles and in register notations that go undiscovered until years after the fact would render those judgments a nullity in the interim, with all the ensuing chaos and uncertainty that will follow their late discovery.

That outcome is not compelled by the text or context of the new statutory scheme governing judgments. Nor is it what the legislature intended. We therefore conclude that the judgment in this case was entered in the register for purposes of ORS 18.082 and is appealable.

Jurisdiction determined; appeal may proceed.

1 See Or Laws 2003, ch 576 (containing the complete text of HB 2646). HB 2646 became effective on January 1, 2004, and its provisions apply to the circumstances of this case. See ORS 171.022 (“Except as otherwise provided in the Act, an Act of the Legislative Assembly takes effect on January 1 of the year after passage of the Act.”); see also Or Laws 2003, ch 576, § 45 (providing, in part, that, “[elxcept as provided by this section or by sections 1 to 44 of this 2003 Act, sections 1 to 44 of this 2003 Act apply only to judgments entered on or after the effective date of this 2003 Act”); Or Laws 2003, ch 576, § 90a (“The amendments to ORS 19.205, 19.270, 19.275, 19.415 and 19.450 by sections 85 to 89 of this 2003 Act apply only to the appeal of judgments entered on or after the effective date of this 2003 Act.”).

2 We describe and cite the relevant provisions in greater detail later.

3 More precisely, the trial court noted in the register, “Judgment Limited Creates Lien.” The “creates lien” notation is consistent with ORS 18.150(1), which requires that notation to be made in the register when the judgment contains a money award. See ORS 18.005(14) (a money award is “a judgment or portion of a judgment that requires the payment of money”).

4 Before the legislature enacted HB 2646, this court had decided Patrick v. Otteman, 158 Or App 175, 187, 974 P2d 217, rev den, 328 Or 594 (1999), in which we held that, where the trial court issued a judgment but the clerk entered it in the register as an order, no judgment had been entered. In light of our holding in Patrick, the new statutory provisions concerning the subcategories of judgments, and their entry and the court administrator’s incorrect notation in this case, we raised, on our own motion, the issue whether the administrator had entered the judgment that the court rendered so that it could he appealed. See ORS 19.235(3) (providing that this court, on its own motion, may “make a summary determination of the appealability of the decision”). We asked the parties to address “whether the general judgment in this case is ineffective, and, therefore, not appealable, because the general judgment was not properly characterized in the case register.” Plaintiff and defendants generally responded that the administrator’s incorrect notation did not affect the appealability of the judgment.

5 Since 1862, “entry” has been the key procedural event that renders a judgment appealable and triggers the time for filing an appeal. See generally Henson and Henson, 61 Or App 210, 214-15, 656 P2d 345 (1982) (discussing authorities). After enactment of the Oregon Rules of Civil Procedure (ORCP), however, confusion arose because of inconsistencies between those rules and other statutes as to whether entry consisted of a notation in the docket, the journal, or the register. See Ryerse v. Haddock, 337 Or 273, 280, 95 P3d 1120 (2004). A1991 amendment eliminated the inconsistency, with the result that both the statutes and former ORCP 70 B(2) since have required judgments and other orders with the effect of judgments to be entered in the register to be effective and appealable. Ryerse, 337 Or at 280.

6 The dissent’s answer to this point is to assert that subsection (1) is silent about the “content” of the notation that must be made in the register and, instead, the content is set forth in the subsections that follow, including subsection (2). The dissent, in effect, reads the statute as though subsection (1) states that entry is achieved when a notation of the following is made in the register, and then sets out the content requirements for entry in the subsections that follow. That is neither the structure nor the text of the statute, however. Subsection (1) expressly declares when entry is achieved, but it says nothing about noting the type of judgment document filed. Subsection (2) expressly requires some indication of a judgment’s type, but says nothing about that indication being a condition of entry. The dissent’s effort to read subsection (2) as a qualification of when entry occurs under subsection (1) subtly rewrites the statute.

7 The dissent, drawing from legislative history, observes that ORS 18.082(6) was included in HB 2646 because of legislative uncertainty as to whether the Judicial Department’s computer systems would reject any notation that does not designate the judgment type in the register. 195 Or App at 633-34 (Brewer, J., dissenting). That legislative history confirms that the legislature wanted judgments to be enforceable and appealable even if a notation of a judgment’s type was not made in the register. The fact that the legislature contemplated technological rather than human obstacles to making that notation does not alter the reality that the legislature did not intend the omission of that information, whatever the reason for the omission, to impede enforceabilty and appealability of judgments.

8 HB 2646 was sponsored by Representatives Lane Shetterly and Max Williams at the request of the Oregon Law Commission (OLC), which was “established to conduct a continuous substantive law revision program.” ORS 173.315(1); see also ORS 173.315 - 173.357 (the enabling legislation for the OLC). The OLC’s Judgments Report was submitted as an exhibit during the legislative hearings concerning HB 2646, and thus provides us with an extensive “record” of the purposes and intentions behind the new bill, albeit a record that proves to be of limited help in this instance.

9 Of course, a judgment still had to be, in substance, a judgment. See generally Brennan v. La Tourelle Apartments, 184 Or App 235, 241, 56 P3d 423 (2002) (stating general rule that, to be appealable, judgment must substantively resolve all claims as to all parties or reflect trial court’s express decision, consistently with ORCP 67 B (2001), amended by Or Laws 2004, ch 576, § 90, to resolve fewer than all claims). But the issue in this case concerns only the procedures for entry, not the substantive recitals in the judgment document.

10 Despite that history, the fact remains, as already discussed, that not every judgment must comply with the requirement that the title indicate whether a judgment is limited, general, and supplemental. See OES 18.082(6).

11 The dissent places significance on accurately informing the public—notjust the parties—of the judgment document filed through a correct notation of judgment type in the register. See 195 Or App at 634 (Brewer, J., dissenting). But, as is true for the parties to a case, little seems to turn on that information. The members of the public primarily concerned with the existence of a judgment document may be title companies and financial institutions whose credit decisions are influenced by the liabilities and liens created by money awards. For those purposes, nothing depends on whether a judgment creating a monetary liability is limited, general, or supplemental. Far more important to such entities is whether the judgment is enforceable. Under the dissent’s approach, an inaccurate notation of judgment type in the register would render a judgment unenforceable, which would stand a much greater potential to mislead the public than the mistaken notation itself.

12 See ORS 7.010(1) (the records of the circuit court include a register).

13 The pendency of an appeal does not alter the trial court’s authority to correct notations in the register. Because such a correction is to the register, not the judgment itself, the further procedures pertaining to the court’s authority when an appeal is pending do not come into play. See ORCP 71A (“During the pendency of an appeal, a judgment may be corrected as provided in subsection (2) of section B of this rule.” (Emphasis added.)).

14 Other statutes provide additional procedural means to correct errors that predictably will arise under the new judgments scheme. See ORS 18.112(1) (authorizing trial court to change the designation of a general judgment to a limited one).

15 Literally hundreds of thousands of cases are filed in the circuit courts that do not result in appeals. In 2001, for example, 654,822 cases were filed in the circuit courts. That same year, only 4,297 appeals were filed with this court. Oregon Blue Book 100 (2003-2004).