Oregon judges’ dangerous new tool
Proposed rule will be weaponized against the state’s most vulnerable litigants
There’s a new civil court rule headed our way, which will allow Oregon judges to decide that some people are super annoying, label them “abusive,” and generate harmful findings against them — in certain instances, even before that person ever steps foot in a courtroom.
The scheme will unfairly target self-represented (or poorly lawyered) litigants, leaving those already-marginalized groups helpless and tarnished.
The plan is also illegal… but let’s put a pin in that for a moment, and simply catalog the many things wrong with this disastrous new court rule.
No study, no evidence, no problem?
Oregon’s Council on Court Procedures, which constructed the rule, believes that the courts are jammed with bothersome litigants who misuse civil cases to rehash settled matters, and harass their opponents.
However, no study has been conducted to gauge the expense, reduced productivity, or damage caused by this purported plague. In fact, the Council’s belief is based entirely on anecdotal evidence¹ supplied by the judges and lawyers who comprise the committee. Talk about an echo chamber.
And their anecdotes sound like hearsay and staffer gossip — certainly nothing that would hold up in their actual courts of law.
A solution in search of a problem
The Council’s formal new rule is incredibly punitive — and the first of its kind for any state or federal court.² That raises an immediate red flag: This is a power grab, plain and simple.
Reading the text of the rule reveals that the power being snatched away is the constitutional right of the public to access the courts — speedily and without barriers — to remedy their injuries.
Instead, problematic people will be stamped “abusive,” their filings will be “restricted,” and they will be required to pay a “security deposit” in order to continue pressing their case. The designation also comes with a finding that the person “harasses, coerces, intimidates, discriminates against, or abuses another party to litigation.”
Uhm…
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Abusive is a harsh and loaded word. It connotes criminality, and evokes mental or even physical assault. It is absolute overkill in a civil context. The common parlance for annoying litigants — in other state and federal courts — is “vexatious,” i.e. frustrating, irritating, disturbing.
That Oregon refuses to use “vexatious,” or some actual synonym, reveals what Oregon really wants: an expedited pathway to label — and punish — certain people as “criminals,” while entirely circumventing criminal court processes. Chew on that for a while.
Due process problem
To paraphrase a well-known Supreme Court decision, I know due process when I see it, and this ain’t it,
In fact, despite “due process” being assured in the very first line of the rule, there is no realistic or clear route for “abusers” to redeem their name or their cause. Read the entire text and decide for yourself.
The potential for actual abuse
Let’s face it: This new rule is not aimed at people with lawyers, it’s aimed squarely at self-represented litigants — who judges and court staff absolutely fucking hate, even when the law and the facts are on their side.
And frequently, people who appear in court without lawyers have powerful, wealthy, or well-connected opponents.
Give those opponents a method of “criminalizing” a civil case against them, and they will abuse it; give them “findings” of “harassment,” “coercion,” and “discrimination,” and they will paper the town with those findings. The rights of those who dare oppose them will be completely extinguished.
It’s far too much power to grant Oregon’s judges, and those who work so diligently to influence them.
This new rule violates Oregon law
Oregon statute prohibits the Council from making any rules that would “abridge, enlarge or modify the substantive rights of any litigant.”
Judges and lawyers should have noticed that the new rule they crafted violated this statute. It shouldn’t be up to someone like me to point it out to them — or to lawmakers.
No notice to the public
The rule is set to be automatically ratified January 1, 2026 because of the Legislature’s refusal to challenge a group of judges, or to bring the matter to the public’s attention, for comment and debate. Meaning, the Legislature “passes” the rule by their own negligence.³
So, unless the public frequents the Council’s website — or the Oregon State Bar’s — then the public is wholly ignorant of this runaway train.⁴
Contact your state representative and senator, and ask them to take a closer look at this proposed rule.
Shocking revelations
Perhaps the most shocking (but not surprising) admission from the Council’s meeting minutes, was that judges are already curtailing the rights of certain litigants, by keeping secret shit lists, created through random, disparate, county-specific means.⁵
This new rule is merely an attempt to get all the shit lists compiled using the same process — and to expose those lists to sunlight.
I guess, for that at least, we should throw them a parade.
Bonus: The rule will be Clackamas Judge Susie Norby’s legacy
Yes, unhinged and racist Susie Norby, who turns every opportunity to speak into an Oscar acceptance speech, and whose gross prejudice against the lawyerless alone should disqualify her from the bench:
¹ I read all the meeting minutes and even watched several recordings. I remain unconvinced that this is a pervasive problem.
² There are informal methods re “vexatious litigants” used in other states and federally. Oregon would be the first to make it an actual, numbered rule of civil procedure. And when I see Oregon’s judicial branch being first at something — and being so eager to be the first at something — it causes alarm.
³ I can’t find anything about the new rule on the Legislature’s website… and neither can Google.
⁴ I only learned of the new rule by regular cruising of the Bar’s website.
⁵ This is a great time to point out that court staff is almost always directly involved in prejudicing a judge against a litigant. It’s staff that tells judges who the “problem people” are, and keeps names scrawled on stickie notes in their drawers.
