City of Cincinnati

The plaintiff filed this lawsuit against her joint employers, asserting sexual harassment/ hostile work environment, retaliation, and other related claims. The employers filed a motion to compel arbitration. The plaintiff opposed the motion and invoked the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, 9 U.S.C. §§ 401- -402. The trial court deemed the Act applicable and denied the motion to compel arbitration. The employers appeal. We affirm.

MANDAMUS – WRITS: The trial court erred by awarding mandamus relief—ordering the city to promote relator to captain with back pay—because relator could not identify any clear legal right and duty requiring the promotion.

CIVIL SERVICE – PROCEDURE/RULES: In an appeal from a decision of the civil service commission pursuant to R.C. 2506.04, the trial court properly denied the employees' request to supplement the administrative record by taking judicial notice of public records, because R.C. 2506.03 permits the introduction of additional evidence only under the statutory criteria. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to strike, pursuant to Loc.R. 14(B) of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, the city's memorandum opposing the employees' motion to supplement the administrative record as untimely where the employees could not demonstrate prejudice. The trial court's judgment, which affirmed the decision of the civil service commission that denied three civil service employees the ability to sit for a promotional examination on the basis that their applications were incomplete because they did not resubmit their educational transcripts, was not supported by a preponderance of the evidence as a matter of law where the administrative record reflected that all three employees' applications had initially been accepted for an examination that had been postponed, there was no evidence that the applications for the postponed examination were deficient, and email correspondence from the city had informed them there was nothing more for them to do.