Defendant set fires in her restaurant and made an insurance claim for the resulting damage to restaurant equipment. She was subsequently convicted of arson, in connection with setting the fires, and attempted aggravated theft, in connection with the fraudulent insurance claim. On appeal, she challenges only the restitution that the trial court ordered her to pay. First, she contends that any award of restitution violated either the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article I, section 17, of the Oregon Constitution. The parties agree, as do we, that those arguments were not preserved, and we conclude that the purported error is not plain. Accordingly, we do not reach the merits of defendant’s constitutional arguments. Alternatively, she challenges the restitution that she was ordered to pay to her insurance company, Oregon Mutual Insurance Group (Oregon Mutual). Defendant contends that some of that restitution was improperly ordered under ORS 137.106, the statute authorizing restitution in criminal cases. As to that assignment of error, we conclude that the challenged expenses were appropriate subjects of restitution. Accordingly, we affirm.
The facts related to this appeal are undisputed. After defendant was found guilty, the state sought restitution awards to Shalimar Properties (defendant’s landlord), State Farm Insurance (the landlord’s insurer of the premises), and Oregon Mutual (defendant’s insurer of the contents of the premises). The state and defendant stipulated to $42,532.32 in restitution to Shalimar Properties and State Farm Insurance, and the trial court ordered that restitution. The state also sought restitution of $28,417.98 to Oregon Mutual.
In her first assignment of error, defendant argues that the trial court erred in ordering any restitution because — under either the Sixth Amendment or Article I, section 17 — a restitution award must be based on jury findings or a valid jury waiver, neither of which occurred in this case. The parties agree — as do we — that defendant did not raise that issue below, but defendant asks us to review it as error apparent on the record.
Generally, we will not consider an unpreserved issue on appeal. State v. Wyatt,
Defendant first argues that the Sixth Amendment, as construed in Apprendi v. New Jersey,
“maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant. * * * In other words, the relevant ‘statutory maximum’ is not the maximum sentence a judge may impose after finding additional facts, but the maximum [the judge] may impose without any additional findings.”
Defendant concedes that, at the time the trial court imposed restitution, we had held that, even if Apprendi and Blakely applied to restitution, the imposition of restitution under ORS 137.106 did not run afoul of the principles announced in those cases. State v. McMillan (A112613),
Defendant contends, however, that the holding of McMillan was erroneous under Southern Union Co. v. U.S.,
Defendant contends that, after Southern Union Co., there is no dispute that a jury must determine the facts that set the maximum amount of restitution that a court may order a defendant to pay. In defendant’s view, Southern Union Co. establishes that McMillan and its progeny were erroneous. Defendant maintains that, under ORS 137.106, the maximum amount of restitution that a court can impose without factual findings is zero. Accordingly, the jury verdict does not contain the information necessary to allow the court to impose restitution greater than zero and, to impose restitution in an amount greater than zero, the court must engage in the kind of factfinding that Apprendi and related cases explain is inconsistent with the Sixth Amendment.
The state, for its part, contends that it is not “obvious” that Apprendi applies to restitution or that McMillan was wrongly decided. The state observes that Southern Union Co. addressed only the imposition of criminal fines and did not address restitution at all, let alone what constitutes a statutory maximum for restitution purposes or whether Apprendi would apply in the restitution context. The state also observes that, both before and after Southern Union Co., courts outside Oregon have uniformly held that Apprendi and Blakely do not apply to restitution orders, and some of those courts have applied reasoning similar to that in McMillan.
We agree with the state that any error under the Sixth Amendment in this case is not plain. For one thing, as the state correctly notes, McMillan is not directly called into question by Southern Union Co. because that case did not address restitution. Moreover, the reasoning in McMillan may or may not be inconsistent with Southern Union Co.— and that uncertainty means that the legal point that defendant raises is not obvious.
In Southern Union Co., the jury’s verdict was equally consistent with a finding of a one-day violation and a 762-day violation; to order a fine greater than $50,000, the trial court had to find facts beyond those evident from
On the other hand, it may be — as defendant argues— that the “natural next step” is to apply reasoning similar
Whatever the ultimate outcome, there is a reasonable dispute about whether the Sixth Amendment requires jury factfinding under Oregon’s restitution scheme. Accordingly, any error is not apparent, and we will not reverse the trial court on this point.
Defendant next argues that Article I, section 17, requires jury determination of the facts underlying restitution. Under Article I, section 17, “[i]n all civil cases the right of Trial by Jury shall remain inviolate.” Defendant again concedes that precedent is against her, recognizing that Oregon courts have consistently held that Article I, section 17, does not apply to the determination of restitution. E.g., Hart,
Ultimately, defendant pins her hopes on N. R. L. being decided in her favor before we decide her appeal. Only then, under State v. Jury,
We turn to defendant’s second assignment of error. As noted, in this assignment of error, defendant disputes parts of the restitution that she was ordered to pay to Oregon Mutual, with whom she had an insurance policy for the contents of her restaurant. We review sentencing decisions, including restitution orders, for legal error. State v. Ferrara,
Along with two counts of arson, defendant was convicted of one count of attempted aggravated theft by deception. The state’s theory of that charge was that defendant, with intent to defraud, attempted to obtain Oregon Mutual’s property by creating a false impression (that the fire had been set accidentally and not through her own fault) that she did not believe to be true when she filed her insurance claim.
The evidence surrounding defendant’s crimes and Oregon Mutual’s expenses was as follows. Defendant set fire to the restaurant in December 2008, and, within a day, called Oregon Mutual to make a claim for loss to business property. Oregon Mutual investigated the claim. Oregon Mutual hired attorney Daniel Thenell of the law firm Smith Freed & Eberhard (Smith Freed) in December 2008 to “provide legal guidance to the insurance company to determine its coverage obligations” and to “help[] steer the investigation into the cause and origin of the fire and whether there would be coverage for the fire.” At defendant’s trial, Thenell explained that his “practice is a bit unique, [in that] I do coverage investigations for insurance companies.” The majority of his work involves insurance claims “where there is some suspicion of insurance fraud or misrepresentation in order to obtain insurance benefits.”
Thenell himself participated quite actively in the investigation. He also retained others to assist in the investigation: a private fire investigation firm, ORCA Fire Investigations (ORCA), to investigate the cause and origin of the fire; CASE Forensics to examine and test electrical components in order to determine the cause and origin of the fire; and Myron Sanders, a private investigator with Expert Investigations, to take witness statements and gather information. Thenell ordered a credit check on defendant that revealed defendant’s financial situation, including the fact that she was behind on her home mortgage.
Thenell, Ryan Fields of ORCA, and Ivan VanDeWege of CASE Forensics inspected the scene soon after the fires. Fields examined the property and took photographs and samples of materials from the scene. VanDeWege assisted with the collection of evidence, took photographs, and tested
Also as part of Oregon Mutual’s investigation of this claim, defendant submitted to an examination under oath in late January 2009. The examination under oath was transcribed.
Ultimately, defendant’s claim to Oregon Mutual was denied “within 35 days of the loss” because of defendant’s misrepresentation.
As of the date of trial, Oregon Mutual had expended $28,417.98. The state presented the following evidence supporting its request for restitution in that amount to Oregon Mutual: (1) invoices from Smith Freed for lawyer and paralegal time, and costs; (2) invoices from CASE Forensics for time and expenses of investigation, evidence storage, and time and expenses of grand jury testimony; (3) invoices from ORCA for time and expenses of investigation, time and expenses of grand jury testimony; (4) invoices from Expert Investigations for time and expenses of investigation; and (5) an invoice from Zaro[Pietka Realtime Reporting for court reporter services related to defendant’s examination under oath.
Defendant objects to two categories of restitution: (1) attorney fees paid to Smith Freed and (2) expenses related to CASE Forensics’ and ORCA’s employees’ grand jury and trial testimony. She alternatively contends that the restitution award should not have included any expenses that Oregon Mutual incurred after it denied her claim.
We begin our analysis by setting out the relevant statutes. ORS 137.106 provides, in part:
“(l)(a) When a person is convicted of a crime * * * that has resulted in economic damages, the district attorney shall investigate and present to the court * * * evidence of the nature and amount of the damages. *** If the court finds from the evidence presented that a victim suffered economic damages, * * * the court shall enter a judgment or supplemental judgment requiring that the defendant pay the victim restitution in a specific amount that equals the full amount of the victim’s economic damages * *
For the purposes of that statute, “economic damages” is defined by ORS 31.710(2)(a):
“‘Economic damages’ means objectively verifiable monetary losses including but not limited to reasonable charges necessarily incurred for medical, hospital, nursing and rehabilitative services and other health care services, burial and memorial expenses, loss of income and past * * * impairment of earning capacity, reasonable and necessary expenses incurred for substitute domestic services, recurring loss to an estate, damage to reputation that is economically verifiable, reasonable and necessarily incurred costs due to loss of use of property and reasonable costs incurred for repair or for replacement of damaged property, whichever is less.”6
As we recently reiterated in State v. Pumphrey,
To the extent that defendant contends that “economic damages” are limited to those that would be recoverable in a civil action, we reject that argument. In 2005,
In Pumphrey, the victim obtained a stalking protective order (SPO) against the defendant, which the defendant was convicted of violating. The defendant challenged five items of restitution: (1) the cost of changing the victim’s phone number; (2) the cost of changing locks on the victim’s home; (3) the cost of the victim renting a temporary residence; (4) the victim’s lost wages from one day’s work when she facilitated changing her locks; and (5) the cost of obtaining police records from a different incident in a different city. It was undisputed that the defendant’s violations of the SPO caused the victim to suffer severe panic attacks and fear, and the record supported an inference that, by taking safety precautions and other actions, the victim addressed the psychological trauma caused by the defendant’s violations of the SPO. We concluded that, because there was evidence that the need for those expenses resulted from the defendant’s criminal actions, the causal connection was sufficient. Id. at 735-36; see also Ceballos,
On the other hand, where there is not even a “but for” connection between a defendant’s criminal activities and a victim’s expenses, we have held that restitution is not proper. See State v. Steckler,
In this case, defendant, with intent to defraud, made a false claim on her insurance policy with Oregon Mutual. It is undisputed that, as a result of defendant’s knowingly false claim, Oregon Mutual undertook an investigation and that the need for that investigation flowed only from defendant’s false claim. It is also undisputed that Oregon Mutual’s investigation addressed the harm posed by defendant’s actions, i.e., the possibility of paying out on a false claim. Put another way, but for defendant’s false claim, Oregon Mutual would not have incurred any of the expenses of investigating that claim, including the attorney fees paid to Smith Freed in connection with leading and participating in the investigation.
As to the expenses that Oregon Mutual incurred after it decided to deny defendant’s claim (which include the challenged charges related to CASE Forensics’ and ORCA’s employees’ grand jury and trial testimony), the record supports an inference that those expenses were incurred because of defendant’s criminal activities and obligations that arose for Oregon Mutual as a result of defendant’s criminal activities. Those expenses included amounts that
First of all, it is undisputed that, had defendant not intentionally set fires (committing arson) and made a false insurance claim (committing attempted theft), there would have been no investigation by the State Fire Marshal or OSP, and no prosecution by the state. Thus, defendant’s criminal actions instigated those investigations and prosecution, and, in turn, resulted in the expenses that Oregon Mutual incurred in connection with those investigations and prosecution, regardless of whether it incurred those expenses before or after it denied defendant’s claim. Moreover, Oregon Mutual’s participation in those investigations and prosecution was not optional and, in fact, was a predicate to it obtaining any restitution at all. Under ORS 476.270(1), an insurance company must make a report to the State Fire Marshal whenever the company has reason to believe that a fire loss to its insured was caused by incendiary means.
Defendant’s intentional conduct in setting fires and submitting a false insurance claim were the but for cause of investigations by the State Fire Marshal and OSP, and the
Affirmed.
Notes
At the restitution hearing, the state indicated that the amount of potential restitution to Oregon Mutual that had been discussed at trial was about $28,000, but “that’s been updated since then to $34,135.52.” However, the only evidence in the record is of requested restitution to Oregon Mutual of $28,417.98. See ORS 137.106(l)(a) (district attorney shall present to the court evidence of the nature and amount sought in restitution).
The 2005 Legislative Assembly amended ORS 137.106 to change the word “pecuniary” to “economic.” Or Laws 2005, ch 564, § 2.
Southern Union Co. was decided after the trial court ordered restitution in this case. However, as explained in State v. Jury,
Other courts that have considered similar issues in the wake of Southern Union Co. have uniformly concluded either that judicial determinations underlying restitution awards do not violate the Sixth Amendment or that any error in the restitution context was not plain under Southern Union Co. See U.S. v. Rogers,
We note that defendant makes passing, undeveloped suggestions that none of the restitution awarded to Oregon Mutual was proper. However, she develops arguments related only to the fees paid to Smith Freed, the expert witness fees for appearance at grand jury and trial, and those expenses incurred after Oregon Mutual denied her claim. To the extent that defendant’s brief could be understood to argue that other parts of the restitution award to Oregon Mutual were improper, we reject that undeveloped argument without further discussion. See, e.g., Cunningham, v. Thompson,
The statutory definition of “economic damages” also includes “future impairment of earning capacity.” ORS 31.710(2)(a). However, that aspect of the definition does not apply to restitution awarded under ORS 137.106. ORS 137.103 (2)(a).
Suggestions in some of our cases that the “recoverable in a civil action” requirement still applies to restitution are dicta and we disavow them. E.g., State v. Lobar,
The adjective “incendiary” means “of, relating to, or involving a deliberate burning of property.” State v. Luers,
