State v. A. E. A.

584                   May 15, 2024                No. 317

         IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                 STATE OF OREGON

                In the Matter of A. E. A.,
                         a Youth.
                 STATE OF OREGON,
                       Respondent,
                            v.
                         A. E. A.,
                        Appellant.
               Baker County Circuit Court
                  21JU03704; A178835

  Matthew B. Shirtcliff, Judge.
  Submitted January 3, 2024.
    Christa Obold Eshleman and Youth, Rights & Justice
filed the brief for appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Greg Rios, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Shorr, Presiding Judge, Mooney, Judge, and Pagán,
Judge.
  MOONEY, J.
  Affirmed.
Cite as 

 (2024)                             585

        MOONEY, J.
         Youth appeals a “Judgment on Restitution and
Money Award” entered against him on a joint and several
basis with his juvenile co-offender, B. The judgment
awarded restitution in the amount of $3,412.81 to State
Farm Insurance for the costs it incurred on behalf of its
insureds, youth’s parents, to repair the damage done to their
car after youth unlawfully took the car from them. Youth
assigns error to the juvenile court’s decision to order him
to pay restitution. He argues that there is no evidence that
he personally damaged his parents’ car. He argues, further,
that even if there is evidence from which it can reasonably
be inferred that he made it possible for B to drive the car,
there is no evidence supporting the conclusion that the damages caused by B were reasonably foreseeable. We conclude
that the evidence supported the juvenile court’s restitution
award, and we affirm.
         “We review a restitution order for legal error and
are bound by the juvenile court’s factual findings if they are
supported by any evidence in the record.” State v. C. A. M.-D.,

, 

, rev den, 

 (2021).
We draw the following facts from the record that was before
the juvenile court when it made its dispositional decisions,
specifically including the record before the court at the restitution hearing.
          Youth stole his parents’ undamaged car, which
became damaged while B drove it in a reckless manner.
State Farm covered the costs incurred by youth’s parents to
repair the car and to provide them with a rental vehicle while
the repairs were performed. The total cost was $3,412.81.
Youth admitted to conduct that, if committed by an adult,
would constitute unauthorized use of a vehicle (UUV) under
ORS 164.135. The juvenile court found youth to be within
its jurisdiction, a restitution hearing was scheduled, and the
juvenile court ultimately imposed restitution in the amount
of $3,412.81.
        ORS 419C.450(1)(a) requires the juvenile court to
award restitution for “injury, loss or damage” caused by the
adjudicated youth and suffered by the victim. “Restitution”
586                                         State v. A. E. A.

is defined by reference to ORS 137.103 as the “full, partial
or nominal payment of economic damages to a victim.” See
ORS 419A.004(29) (incorporating the definition of “restitution” from ORS 137.103 into the juvenile code). For restitution purposes, the term “economic damages” is defined by
reference to ORS 31.705 as the victim’s “objectively verifiable monetary losses[.]” ORS 137.103(2)(a); ORS 31.705. The
juvenile court must award restitution when there is sufficient evidence of criminal activity, economic damages, and
a causal relationship between the criminal activity and the
economic damages. C. A. M.-D., 

.
         Youth disputes causation. He argues that damage is
not an element of UUV and that he therefore did not admit
to causing damage when he admitted that he engaged in
conduct that would constitute UUV if he had been an adult.
Relying on State v. Mothershed, 

, 

(2022), he argues that his adjudication based on UUV does
not provide evidence that he caused damage to his parents’
car. But this case is different from Mothershed. We reversed
the restitution award in Mothershed because the defendant
came into possession of the vehicle after it was stolen, and
there was evidence that the damage had been “caused by
the original thief.” 

.
         But youth, here, does not occupy a position in
the “post-theft chain of possession” like the defendant in
Mothershed did. He is instead the person who stole the
car from his parents in the first place. The question is not
whether youth may be ordered to pay restitution for damage that had been caused by another person before he
took possession of the stolen car. The question is whether
youth’s criminal conduct (taking his parents’ car without
their permission) caused the victim’s economic damages
(the car repair costs ultimately paid by State Farm). As we
explained in Mothershed, “[a] person who commits UUV
may be ordered to pay restitution for damage to the vehicle”
when that person’s unlawful conduct is a “but-for cause of
the damage.” 

.
        We look to “principles enunciated in civil cases concerning recoverable economic damages.” State v. Islam, 

, 

 (2016). Guided by those principles,
Cite as 

 (2024)                                 587

we recently discussed “but-for” causation in the context of a
restitution case:
   “The ‘but for’ test is often used in civil cases to determine
   ‘whether a defendant’s negligence is one of many potential
   causes of a plaintiff’s harm.’ Haas v. Estate of Mark Steven
   Carter, 

, 

 (2023) (emphasis in
   original). The test does not, however, reduce causation
   to a single cause. It asks whether the harm would have
   occurred ‘but for’—or, in the absence of—’the defendant’s
   negligence.’ 

 Moreover, the ‘but for’ test is not the only
   test used to measure factual causation in civil cases. See,
   e.g., Lasley v. Combined Transport, Inc., 

, 

 (2011) (discussing cause in fact and the ‘substantial factor’ test).”
State v. Page, 

, 

 (2024).
         The record is not extensive here, but when it is
viewed in the light most favorable to the state, it supports
a reasonable inference that the vehicle would not have
been damaged if youth had not stolen it. The juvenile court
found that youth’s “conduct in taking the vehicle facilitated
[B]’s conduct in driving the vehicle and causing damage to
the vehicle.” It reasoned that “[e]ven if direct control was
asserted over the vehicle by the accomplice [B] driving the
vehicle, [youth]’s criminal activity was still a contributing
factor to the loss.” The record supports those findings.
         This case is similar to State v. Stephens, 

, 

 (2002), where the defendant had taken
control of a car that he knew was stolen and then left it
unattended in a friend’s unprotected yard. The tires and
wheels were subsequently stolen from the car by a different
person. We affirmed a restitution award against the defendant for the economic loss associated with the stolen tires
and wheels because in the absence of the defendant’s criminal activities—exercising control of a vehicle that he knew
was stolen and then leaving it unattended—the tires and
wheels would not likely have been stolen. 

; see also
State v. Doty, 

, 

 (1982) (explaining that the defendant was liable for restitution “for the loss
resulting from the purported second burglary facilitated by
588                                          State v. A. E. A.

his own negligent conduct in leaving the victim’s premises
unprotected after his own criminal conduct had ended”).
          Youth next argues that even if the record supports
the existence of a causal link between his act of stealing
the car and the damage done to the car when B was driving
it, that damage was not a reasonably foreseeable result of
youth’s conduct. But, that argument goes to whether the cost
of repairing the car is “the kind[ ] of harm for which [youth]
may be held liable.” State v. Ramos, 

, 

 (2016). It does not go to the existence of a causal link
as a factual matter. Youth clearly raised the factual issue
of causation before the juvenile court, and again on appeal,
and we have now addressed that issue. But the application of
“reasonable foreseeability as a limiting concept under ORS
137.106,” Page, 

, is not about cause-in-fact.
It is instead about whether, given the existence of a causal
connection, the loss incurred is so far attenuated from the
criminal activity that we would not hold youth responsible
for such loss. Because youth did not raise that argument
before the juvenile court, he did not preserve it for appeal,
and we reject it without further discussion.
        Affirmed.