State Ex Rel. Douglas County v. Sanders

In 1865, this court held that taxpayers of a public body are absolutely disqualified from sitting as jurors in any lawsuit in which the public body has a pecuniary interest. Garrison v. City of Portland, 2 Or 123, 124 (1865). The most recent restatement of the rule was in 1927, in Wheeler v. Cobbs & Mitchell Co., 121 Or 422, 424, 253 P 5 (1927). We issued an alternative writ of mandamus in the case at bar to consider whether residents of a county are necessarily disqualified from sitting as jurors in any case in which the county has a pecuniary interest in the outcome. We hold that county…