Gentry and Bonomo ( 2024 )

812 July 17, 2024 No. 499
This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
In the Matter of
Jamie GENTRY,
Petitioner-Respondent,
and
STATE OF OREGON,
Initiating Party-Respondent,
and
Joseph BONOMO,
Respondent-Appellant.
Jackson County Circuit Court
112560D2; A178637
Timothy C. Gerking, Judge.
Submitted June 14, 2024.
Frank E. Laboy Blanc filed the briefs for appellant.
Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Kate E. Morrow, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent State of Oregon.
No appearance for respondent Jamie Gentry.
Before Tookey, Presiding Judge, Egan, Judge, and Kamins,
Judge.
TOOKEY, P. J.
Affirmed.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 333 Or App 812 (2024) 813
TOOKEY, P. J.
In this procedural quagmire, father appeals from
a judgment of the circuit court denying his motion under
ORCP 71 B(1)(a) to set aside a judgment of child support
arrears. The court denied father’s motion after determining
that it was barred by claim preclusion, based on the court’s
previous rejection of an earlier a motion by the Division of
Child Support of the Department of Justice (DCS) under
ORCP 71, directed at the same judgment.1 We conclude that
the trial court did not err in denying father’s motion and
therefore affirm.
Some seven years after father’s child support obli-
gation had been finally determined by judgment, father
moved to set aside the judgment under ORCP 71 B(1)(a),
based on “mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable
neglect.” Mother objected to father’s motion, arguing that
it was barred by claim preclusion, based on a prior judg-
ment that had rejected a previous motion under ORCP 71 B.
Father responded that mother’s objection was untimely.
After a hearing, the court rejected father’s motion to set
aside the 2014 judgment, based on claim preclusion.
On appeal, in five assignments of error, father asks
that we reverse the court’s ruling rejecting his motion to
set aside the 2014 judgment and order the trial court to
hold a hearing on the amount of arrearages. DCS concedes
in response that the trial court erred in rejecting father’s
motion for relief under ORCP 71 B(1) on claim preclusion
grounds; but DCS asserts that the trial court’s ruling
should nonetheless be affirmed, because father’s motion was
untimely, it having been brought almost seven years after
the entry of the 2014 judgment it seeks to set aside, well
outside the one-year period allowed by ORCP 71 B(1) (“The
motion shall be made within a reasonable time, and for rea-
sons (a), (b), and (c) not more than one year after receipt
of notice by the moving party of the judgment.”). DCS fur-
ther contends that an affirmance on that ground disposes of
father’s remaining assignments of error, which all relate to
1
The previous motion to set aside DCS’s order of arrears had been filed by
DCS on father’s behest, based on a potential lack of clarity in the order.
814 Gentry and Bonomo
asserted procedural deficiencies in the trial court’s ruling
dismissing father’s motion.
We agree with DCS’s concession that the trial court
erred in rejected father’s motion based on claim preclusion.
And we further agree with DCS that there was no error by
the trial court in rejecting father’s motion based on untime-
liness. As DCS contends, father brought his motion well out-
side the one-year time frame allowed by ORCP 71 B. It is
true that the timeliness issue was not raised below. Although
we do not generally invoke “right for the wrong reason” as
a basis for affirmance when the alternative issue was not
raised below, here we conclude that it is appropriate. There
are no disputed facts and there is little possibility that, if
the issue had been raised by DCS, parties’ arguments could
have altered the outcome or the determination that father’s
motion was untimely. We conclude for those reasons that the
trial court correctly rejected father’s motion. See Outdoor
Media Dimensions Inc. v. State of Oregon, 331 Or 634, 659-
60, 20 P3d 180 (2001) (setting forth criteria for affirming
trial court on alternative grounds). We agree with DCS
that our determination is dispositive of father’s remaining
assignments.
Affirmed.