Justia Ohio Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In an underlying partition action, Appellant objected to a magistrate’s decision. Judge Nancy Russo of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court affirmed the magistrate’s decision. Judge Russo subsequently issued a final judgment ordering a sheriff’s sale and setting the terms of distribution of the proceeds. Rather than appealing the final order, Appellant sought a writ of mandamus directing Judge Russo to issue a final, appealable order on her adoption of the magistrate’s decision. The court of appeals denied a writ. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant had an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law by way of appeal, and therefore, Appellant could not satisfy the elements required for a writ of mandamus. View "State ex rel. Luoma v. Russo" on Justia Law

Miles Cobrun was killed after he was struck by a vehicle driven by Robert Shill. Peggy Spaeth, Cobrun’s wife, filed a wrongful-death action against Robert and his insurer. Robert sought additional coverage under the liability policy of his parents issued by Cincinnati Insurance Company (CIC). CIC denied coverage. Robert then filed this declaratory-judgment action seeking a declaration that CIC owed him a duty of indemnification in the wrongful-death case. The trial court consolidated the declaratory-judgment and underlying wrongful-death actions. The trial court granted summary judgment for CIC. The appellate court reversed. At issue before the Supreme Court was the meaning of the term “domicile,” the crucial policy term at issue in regard to coverage for Robert under his parents’ CIC umbrella policy. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) in accordance with this Court’s previous jurisprudence, the definition of domicile is where a person resides, where he intends to remain, and where he intends to return when away temporarily; and (2) under this definition, Robert was not an insured “resident relative” under the umbrella policy at issue. View "Schill v. Cincinnati Ins. Co." on Justia Law

A property owner (Taxpayer) filed a complaint for tax year 2010, asking for a reduction from the auditor’s value of its property. The Cuyahoga County Board of Revision (BOR) dismissed Taxpayer’s complaint. Taxpayer then filed a complaint challenging the valuation for tax year 2011. Ohio Rev. Code 5715.19(A)(2) generally prohibits the filing of a second complaint within the same interim period, with certain exceptions, and the 2010 and 2011 tax years were part of the same interim period between the 2009 update and the 2012 reappraisal in Cuyahoga County. Taxpayer argued that two exceptions to the general rule applied in this case. The Board of Tax Appeals (BTA) disagreed and held that neither applied. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the filing of Taxpayer’s tax-year-2011 complaint came within the exception in Ohio Rev. Code 5715.19(A)(2)(a), and the filing therefore invoked the jurisdiction of the BOR. Remanded. View "Soyko Kulchystsky, LLC v. Bd. of Revision" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of several counts of aggravated robbery and abduction, with firearm specifications. Several years later, Appellant filed a motion asserting that his sentence should be corrected because he was not properly advised of postrelease control. The trial court responded by correcting the original sentencing entry by a nunc pro tunc entry. Thereafter, Appellant filed a petition for writs of mandamus and procedendo against Judge Jeffrey L. Reed, requesting that the court of appeal compel the judge to issue a final, appealable sentencing order in his criminal case. The court of appeals denied the writ, concluding that the sentencing judgment, as corrected by the nunc pro tunc entry was a final, appealable order. The Sureme Court affirmed on the grounds that Appellant had an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law by way of appeal. View "State ex rel. Ward v. Reed" on Justia Law

After Employee was terminated from his position as a construction-equipment operator with the City of Cleveland, the collective-bargaining unit for construction-equipment operators employed by the City sought a writ of mandamus to compel the City Civil Service Commission to conduct a termination hearing before a neutral referee. The appellate court denied the writ, concluding that Employee had no clear legal right to a termination hearing, that the Commission had no clear legal duty to provide Employee with a hearing before a neutral referee, and that Employee had an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) Employee had a clear legal right to a hearing to challenge his termination; (2) the City was under a clear legal duty to appoint a referee to conduct a hearing; and (3) a writ of mandamus was the proper remedy because Employee had no adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. View "State ex rel. Mun. Constr. Equip. Operators’ Labor Council v. City of Cleveland" on Justia Law

Kohl’s Illinois, Inc. filed a valuation complaint challenging the tax year 2010 valuation of a Kohl’s store in Marion County. The Board of Revision (BOR) dismissed the case, finding that the complaint was void because the property was subject to a tax-increment-financing (TIF) agreement that contained a covenant prohibiting the filing of a complaint against the value. The Board of Tax Appeals (BTA) affirmed the decision of the BOR. The Supreme Court vacated the decision of the BTA, holding (1) any bar to the complaint that arises from the TIF agreement is not a jurisdictional restriction, and therefore, the complaint was not void; (2) the beneficiaries of the covenant had the burden to assert the covenant as a defense against Kohl’s complaint; and (3) because the beneficiaries did not shoulder the burden to prove their entitlement to a dismissal of Kohl’s complaint, the decision of the BTA must be vacated. Remanded. View "Kohl’s Ill., Inc. v. Bd. of Revision" on Justia Law

Bank of America, N.A. filed a complaint in foreclosure against George and Bridget Kuchta, claiming to be the holder of a promissory note and assignee of the mortgage. The trial court granted summary judgment to the bank and entered a decree of foreclosure in its favor. The Kuchtas moved to vacate the summary judgment and decree of foreclosure, arguing that the bank lacked standing to commence the action because it did not prove ownership of the note and because the mortgage assignment was fatally flawed. The trial court denied the motion. The court of appeals reversed, holding that standing is a jurisdictional matter and that Bank of America’s alleged lack of standing would warrant relief from judgment. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that a lack of standing cannot support a motion for relief from judgment, and lack of standing does not render a judgment void for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Bank of Am., N.A. v. Kuchta" on Justia Law

In 2011, Bernard Keith entered Lorain Correctional Institution to serve a six-month sentence. A hearing officer subsequently determined that Keith’s previous parole should be revoked. After a parole release hearing, the parole board denied Keith’s parole, citing several factors and stating that Keith had been paroled eight times. Keith filed this action in mandamus, requesting that the Ohio Adult Parole Authority (OAPA) be compelled to correct the record to reflect the correct number of times he had been paroled and that the parole board grant him a new hearing to consider the corrected information. The OAPA filed a motion to dismiss Keith’s case. Keith subsequently raised additional claims of further errors in his records. The court of appeals granted the OAPA’s motion for summary judgment because the information regarding the number of times Keith had been paroled had been corrected and because the parole board declined to modify its decision based on that corrected information. The Supreme Court reversed and granted the writ because the court of appeals failed to consider Keith’s additional assertions of error in his record. View "State ex rel. Keith v. Ohio Adult Parole Auth." on Justia Law

Reporting that it suffered underrecovered transmission costs of $36 million during the period under review, the Ohio Power Company filed an application to recover the underrecovered transmission costs associated with providing transmission service to its standard-service-offer customers. The Public Utilities Commission approved the application, determining that Ohio Power could collect the underrecovered costs from both shopping and nonshopping customers. Industrial Energy Users-Ohio (IEU) appealed, arguing that the Commission abused its discretion by allowing Ohio Power to recover the underrecovered transmission costs from shopping customers. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the IEU did not meet its burden of demonstrating that the Commission’s orders were unjust, unreasonable, or unlawful. View "In re Application of Ohio Power Co." on Justia Law

The City of Cincinnati charged Daniel Ilg with operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and related offenses. Ilg moved to suppress the results of his breath test taken from an Intoxilyzer 8000 machine. During discovery, Ilg sought computerized online breath archives data consisting of information transmitted by the specific machine used to test him to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) for each breath test it performed. Ilg sought the data to challenge whether the Intoxilyzer 8000 machine operated properly on the day of his arrest. When the information was not forthcoming, the trial court ordered ODH to disclose the records. The ODH failed to comply with the discovery order, and the trial court ordered as a sanction that the evidence obtained from the Intoxilyzer 8000 be excluded from trial. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the sanction was warranted in this case because Ilg was entitled to discovery of relevant evidence to support his claim that the Intoxilyzer 8000 machine used to test him failed to operate properly. View "City of Cincinnati v. Ilg" on Justia Law