remanding for reconsideration where the Psychiatric Security Review Board had improperly relied on facts submitted by board members
How later courts described this case
- remanding for reconsideration where the Psychiatric Security Review Board had improperly relied on facts submitted by board members
- discussing the Psychiatric Security Review Board’s expertise and adjudicative role
- “It is one thing, however, to say that an agency may employ its experience and expertise to evaluate and understand evidence and quite another to allow it to use its special knowledge as a substitute for evidence presented at a hearing.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JOSEPH, C. J.,
dissenting.
Because I think the majority’s result is contrary to the overall legislative scheme and threatens the vitality and utility of PSRB, I dissent.
In general I accept everything up through the full paragraph at 53 Or App at 948. Thereafter, the opinion treats as "evidence” or as "fact” some matters that, in all fairness, were only expressions of professional expert opinion furnished by persons whose presence on the Board is provided for by statute (ORS 161.385) so that the system can have the advantage of their professional judgments.
The opinion (53 Or App at 949) accepts certain statements of Dr. Shannon, the psychiatrist member of the Board, as "merely” reflecting "an evaluative process.” That is proper. The opinion immediately proceeds to treat as a "statement of fact” a clearly identified and properly stated expression of professional medical opinion, which we must assume was based on her expertise. See ORS 41.360(15). The majority’s citation of ORS 183.450(4) is appropriate, but only for the last sentence — which applies to what Dr. Shannon did in this case. She did not violate the statutory rule of "notice of judicially cognizable facts” or taking "official notice of general, technical or scientific facts.” She explained how she, as a professional, as a physician and as a psychiatrist, arrived at her conclusion. I think the same view ought to be taken of Mr. McKenna’s statement as an expert member.
The majority’s opinion states, at 53 Or App at 951: "In this case, PSRB has not merely evaluated evidence but has supplied evidence derived from personal knowledge to support its decision.” In my view that is simply not true. The only "vice” in the order under review is that, by having *953 attached to it transcriptions of the two members’ statements, the order made explicit the doing of that which is implicitly required by the nature of the composition of the Board.
The danger of the majority’s view is that it will effectively destroy the utility of the expert, professional members of the Board — or, at best, it may force them into undesirable subterfuges. To make my point as sharp as possible: Were I either Dr. Shannon or Mr. McKenna, I would resign from the Board in the face of this opinion, because it will severely and unreasonably limit me in doing what I was appointed to do..
Thornton, Buttler and Van Hoomissen, JJ, join in this dissent.