The Oregon Surveyor Sept/Oct 2018

22 Vol. 41, No. 5 The Oregon Surveyor | Court of Appeals (OCOA) for judicial re- view in an absence of any prior judicial disposition regarding any of the issues surrounding the protested conveyance, and the OCOA promptly struck down the lower court ruling on the issue of standing, opening the door to full argumentation. How did those advocating in favor of the 2014 title transfer endeavor to justify that conveyance? Legal counsel representing Oregon and those representing Oregon’s grantees defended the transaction in question on differing grounds. Most notably, Oregon argued that state personnel had no need to concern themselves with 530.450 at all because that statute comprised an unjustifiable truncation of their consti- tutional authority to dispose of Oregon lands, while the privately employed le- gal team defending the timber company elected to leverage what they set out to convince the OCOA was a fatal flaw in the language of that statute. Attorneys for the 2014 grantees of the 788-acre parcel asserted that because 530.450 employs the term “patent,” and the land in con- tention was never patented to Oregon or to anyone, that statute can have no ap- plication whatsoever to any of the land which came into Oregon’s ownership by virtue of the MTE. Unfortunately for the private defendants however, the OCOA has had enough experience adjudicating land rights issues to recognize a clever ruse, and summarily swept aside this artful but ineffectual attempt to make a single obscure word the fulcrum upon which its ruling should tip in their favor. Cognizant that the transfer of title from federal status, as part of the Siuslaw NF prior to 1927, to subsequent ownership by Oregon, was plainly equivalent in legal effect to the issuance of a federal patent, the OCOA rejected the argument that the land which the grantees sought to acquire in 2014 was not within the contempla- tion of Oregon legislators in either 1913 or 1957. The position set forth by the Or- egon legal team however, invoking the Oregon Constitution and requiring the OCOA to assess the multiple levels of authority arising therefrom, presented a much more substantial matter, demand- ing somewhat deeper judicial scrutiny. What is the most critical factor relevant to any determination of the consti- tutionality of any given law? Any lawwhich seeks to justify acts exceed- ing the scope of governmental authority within an area of the law is potential- ly unconstitutional. For example, a law purporting to put in place any process by which land rights could be taken from private parties by the public without just compensation would exceed constitution- al restrictions upon the capacity of any public agency to take private land for any legitimate public purpose. Thus, bound- aries of authority comprise the principal subject of judicial analysis whenever the constitutionality of any existing legislative enactment is to be evaluated. In the obser- vation of the OCOA, the 50-year protective period legislatively instituted in 1913 was intended to induce the required federal approval of the MTE proposal, by provid- ing assurance to federal authorities that any and all land being extracted by Ore- gon from federal control would remain comparably protected for a substantial time period, and it evidently accomplished that objective. Moreover, the OCOA re- alized the removal of that time period in 1957 clearly signified that the people of Oregon were highly satisfied with the re- sults of the land exchange that had been diligently coordinated by Elliott and had no desire to relinquish control over the magnificent area which he had devoted the last years of his life to bringing under state control. Given this judicial mindset, it’s not surprising that the OCOA viewed the challenged state law appreciatively and needed only to explain the basis for that statute’s legitimacy, in order to set Any law which seeks to justify acts exceeding the scope of governmental authority within an area of the law is potentially unconstitutional. For example, a law purporting to put in place any process by which land rights could be taken from private parties by the public without just compensation would exceed constitutional restrictions upon the capacity of any public agency to take private land for any legitimate public purpose. Thus, boundaries of authority comprise the principal subject of judicial analysis whenever the constitutionality of any existing legislative enactment is to be evaluated. Feature Article continued T