## Facts

- Arthur W. Dickens, Jr. traveled to the Columbia River below John Day Dam and caught a sturgeon about 43 inches long, weighing roughly 40–45 pounds.
- To prevent spoilage overnight, Dickens tied the live sturgeon by a rope through its gills to a cable under a fishing platform and went to a nearby motel.
- Dickens asked two other fishermen, Rans Golden and Gregory Elliot, to watch the fish.
- Oregon State Trooper Michael J. DeBolt observed Golden and Elliot fishing illegally, saw them catch and tie a sturgeon under the platform, arrested them, and went under the platform to seize the fish as evidence.
- Two sturgeon were tied beneath the platform; DeBolt mistakenly seized Dickens’s sturgeon rather than the illegally caught fish.
- Lacking proper storage, DeBolt took the sturgeon home, skinned and fileted it, packaged it, and placed an evidence tag on the package.
- The next morning Dickens found his rope cut and the fish missing; he called the state police to recover it but was told he would not get it back.
- At trial, DeBolt produced only a frozen package weighing about eight pounds; the jury inferred that DeBolt consumed most of the fish.

## Issues

1. Whether Oregon statutory immunity for public officers barred a tort action for conversion against a state trooper who mistakenly seized and then retained or consumed private property taken as purported evidence.
2. Whether the Oregon Tort Claims Act required construing immunity provisions to preserve a remedy for wrongful dominion over property, including the availability of punitive damages against the officer.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, which had held the officer had complete and absolute immunity.
- The court held the statutory scheme did not provide DeBolt an all-encompassing personal shield from a conversion claim on these facts.
- The court reinstated judgment for Dickens on the jury verdict (general and punitive damages), subject to the statutory structure governing public-body and employee liability.

## Legal Principles

- Conversion is the wrongful exercise of dominion or control over another’s personal property; an initial law-enforcement seizure does not preclude conversion where the property is wrongfully retained, destroyed, or used after demand for return.
- Public-officer immunity under the Oregon Tort Claims Act is not categorical; immunity provisions must be read in context with provisions assigning liability for torts committed in the course of public employment.
- The Tort Claims Act generally functions to channel or substitute liability in a way that preserves a meaningful remedy for persons injured by tortious conduct of public employees, rather than eliminating remedies.
- Punitive damages are not barred solely because the defendant is a public employee acting under color of authority; statutory text and purpose govern whether such damages may be imposed on the individual employee for misuse of seized property.

## Conclusion

The court rejected absolute statutory immunity for a state trooper who mistakenly seized a fisherman’s sturgeon and then effectively deprived the owner of it, holding that the Tort Claims Act did not erase common-law remedies for conversion in such circumstances and reinstating the plaintiff’s verdict, including punitive damages.


Dickens v. DeBolt, 602 P.2d 246 (Or. 1979)