Court Rulings

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - First Amendment to the United States Constitution Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 11 free speech State Employment Relations Board Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act R.C. 4117.11(B)(7) unfair labor practice labor relations dispute employee organization induce or encourage picketing residence or place of private employment representative of the public employer unconstitutional restriction on speech public forum content-based strict scrutiny not necessary to serve a compelling state interest protect residential privacy preserve labor peace encourage public service not narrowly tailored not the least restrictive means prohibits lawful conduct secondary picketing distinction between lawful and unlawful secondary activity based on picketer's conduct and objective.

The common pleas court did not abuse its discretion in finding reliable, probative, and substantial evidence supporting the decision of the Unemployment Compensation Review Commission finding that Humanus Corporation is a liable employer under Ohio unemployment compensation law.

The plaintiff, a minor child diagnosed with Down syndrome and without functional speech who was enrolled in the Hebron public school system, brought an action seeking damages from the defendants, the town of Hebron, the Board of Education, and eight of the board's employees, for, inter alia, negligence per se and statutory (§§ 46a-58 and 46a-75) discrimination. The plaintiff claimed that the defendants discriminated against him based on his disabilities by segregating him from students without disabilities and breached their duties to educate him in the least restrictive environment. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's complaint on the ground that the plaintiff sought relief for the defendants' failure to provide special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.), thus triggering an administrative exhaustion requirement contained in that act and in the applicable state statutory (§ 10-76a et seq.) scheme that implements the federal act, thereby depriving the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction. The defendants specifically contended that, although the plaintiff did not allege a violation of the federal act, he sought relief for the denial of a free appropriate public education under the federal act and that, regardless of whether the complaint alleged a violation of the federal act, the federal act and state law (§ 10-76h) mandated exhaustion of administrative remedies insofar as the crux of the complaint was the alleged denial of a free appropriate public educa- tion. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss and rendered judgment thereon, concluding that the plaintiff was required to exhaust his admin- istrative remedies but had failed to do so. On appeal to this court, the plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that he was not required to exhaust his administrative remedies because he did not allege a denial of a free appropriate public education and sought monetary relief, a remedy t

CIVIL - summary judgment declaratory judgment collective bargaining agreement grievance arbitrability Ohio Arbitration Act R.C. 2711.01(A) Ohio Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act R.C. 4117.10(A) scope presumption explicit language other forceful evidence from the bargaining history.

The trial court granted summary judgment in this personal injury action to each of three appellees. The trial court correctly granted summary judgment to one appellee-truck driver and his employer, because as to this truck driver, the appellant's injury was not foreseeable thus, this driver did not owe appellant a duty of care. The trial court erred by granting summary judgment to the second appellee-truck driver, because this driver owed appellant a duty of care, and there were unresolved questions of fact concerning breach of the duty of care, proximate cause, and comparative fault. Judgment affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

Price d/b/a Peak Billing (Price) contracted with Mountain Sleep Diagnostics, Inc. (MSD) to provide billing services for MSD and its patients. The contract automatically renewed every year unless one party notified the other of its intent to terminate at least 90 days before the renewal date. Disputes under the contract, including any involving inadequate notice of the contract's termination, were subject to binding arbitration, and the prevailing party in an arbitrated dispute was entitled to attorney fees. MSD terminated Price's contract less than 90 days before the renewal date and Price filed a motion to compel arbitration in district court. The court granted the motion, and after a two-day arbitration hearing, the arbitrator awarded Price $124,224 for MSD's breach of the contract plus $24,600 in attorney fees. The trial court affirmed the award. MSD moved to vacate the award, alleging that, while performing billing services for MSD, Price had committed fraud by misappropriating more than $60,000 in payments meant for MSD. The trial court issued an order denying MSD's motion to vacate and granting Price's motion to confirm. On appeal, MSD argued that the arbitrator's award should be vacated because discoveries MSD made after the arbitration was complete established by clear and convincing evidence that Price procured the arbitration award through fraud, and the district court was required to hold a hearing on the motion to vacate. Though the merits of an arbitration award are generally unreviewable, a court must vacate an arbitration award if it was "procured by corruption, fraud, or other undue means." A party seeking to vacate an award on the grounds that it was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue means must show by clear and convincing evidence that (1) fraud occurred (2) the fraud was not discoverable by exercising due diligence before or during the arbitration and (3) the fraud had a material effect on a dispositive issue in the arbitration. Motions to c

Objections sustained writ of mandamus granted. In the context of awarding temporary total disability compensation, the commission cannot consider the employee's good-faith reasons for rejecting an employer's offer of suitable alternative employment when the commission has already determined that the employer's offer was made in good faith. The commission may consider the employee's reasons for rejecting the emmployer's offer of suitable alternative employment only in the context of determining whether the employer extended the offer in good faith.

Pursuant to the Ohio Administrative Code, proposed settlement of a Violation of a Specific Safety Regulation claim is to be considered by an industrial commission staff hearing officer who is to determine whether the settlement is appropriate after a hearing, the staff hearing officer may issue an order disapproving the proffered settlement. The magistrate did not err in reading Administrative Code 4121-3-20(F)(1) to mean what it says, and the industrial commission is within its mandate in taking fairness and safety considerations into account when it makes its determination. Objections to magistrate's decision overruled writ of mandamus against commission denied.

DISCRIMINATION — EMPLOYER/EMPLOYEE —RETALITION: The trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendant-employer on plaintiff-employee's claim for race discrimination where the employee failed to demonstrate a prima facie case of race discrimination: the employee did not demonstrate an inference that he had been replaced by a person outside of the protected class where the employee's former job duties were spread out among remaining employees and where the employer filled the former position a year after the former employee's termination. When evaluating the third prong of a prima facie case of employment discrimination, a court must examine the plaintiff's evidence of his or her qualifications for the position independent of the nondiscriminatory reasons asserted by the employer as its reasons for terminating plaintiff's employment. Where the plaintiff-employee did not demonstrate a prima facie case of retaliation, the trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the employer: the employee's evidence that he was terminated more than two months after he had reported "racial tension" was not sufficient, without more, to establish a causal link between the employee's protected activity and the employer's decision to terminate the employee.

Where in a second appeal, the trial court's prior determination of the distribution of marital property was affirmed in the first appeal, including its finding that the defendant engaged in financial misconduct, the trial court does not abuse its discretion in making distributive awards on remand that take into account the earlier found financial misconduct, that may support in an unequal division of the marital assets between the parties on remand.

Post-judgment modification of residential responsibility is governed by statute which provides the standard for a court to apply. When a prior judgement establishes joint or equal residential responsibility, modification first requires a determination to award primary residential responsibility. A residential responsibility order provision that automatically transfers primary residential responsibility on the happening of a condition is against public policy.

The plaintiffs, J, A and their minor child, sought to recover damages from the defendant for trespass, nuisance and invasion of privacy, and the defendant filed a counterclaim against J and A alleging claims of trespass, private nuisance, invasion of privacy, defamation and defamation per se in connection with an ongoing dispute between the parties, who are neighbors. Following prior litigation between the parties and in response to vandalism in the parties' neighborhood, the defendant installed sur- veillance cameras on the rear of her property, facing the backyard of the plaintiffs' property, which upset J and A because, inter alia, they believed that the cameras were angled to monitor their child's play area. Soon thereafter, J and A installed floodlights in their backyard that emitted bright light into the defendant's yard and through her windows, and the defendant discovered a website connected to J that contained references that she was associated with child pornography. Following a trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant on the complaint and on the counterclaim and awarded $292,000 in noneco- nomic damages against both J and A on the private nuisance and intru- sion on seclusion invasion of privacy claims, and $250,000 as to both the defamation claim and false light invasion of privacy claim against J. The jury also found that the actions of J and A were sufficiently reckless or intentional to justify an award of punitive damages. There- after, the court denied the motion to set aside the verdict filed by J and A, awarded the defendant $32,600 in punitive damages and ordered a permanent injunction against J and A, limiting their use of the floodlights directed at the defendant's property and requiring J to remove the defam- atory statements about the defendant from the website. The court subse- quently granted the defendant's motion for contempt, finding J and A in contempt for failing to comply with its permanent injunction order. On J a

The plaintiff, a business invitee of the defendant company, brought a prem- ises liability action against the defendant, seeking damages for personal injuries she sustained when two empty boxes fell off a shelf and struck her in the head and shoulder as she was walking in an aisle of the defendant's store. After a trial to the court, the trial court rendered judgment for the plaintiff. The court applied the mode of operation rule enunciated in Kelly v. Stop & Shop, Inc. (281 Conn. 768), and concluded that the boxes fell and struck the plaintiff as a result of the defendant's negligence. The court determined that the store manager, M, and another employee, R, had been stocking merchandise in an adjacent aisle when a box on the top shelf of that aisle toppled over and into the boxes on the top shelf of the aisle in which the plaintiff was walking, thereby causing the boxes to fall off the shelf and onto the plaintiff. On appeal, the defendant claimed that the trial court improperly applied the mode of operation rule. Held that the evidence did not support the imposition of liability under the mode of operation rule or the affirmative act rule, under which proof of notice is not necessary because the defendant itself created the unsafe condition, as there was no evidence as to what caused the boxes to fall on the plaintiff: the plaintiff, relying on the mode of operation rule, failed to make out a prima facie case of negligence, as the record did not demonstrate that the defendant had a specific method of operation that was different from the general operation of a similar business, the only evidence about the regularity of any hazard came from M, who was unaware of merchandise ever falling onto a customer, the potential for which did not give rise to a regularly occurring or inherently foreseeable hazard, and the record was devoid of evidence that the plaintiff's injuries occurred within a limited zone of risk where the risk of injury was continuous or foreseeably inh

Trial court judgments in favor of appellees are affirmed. motion to dismiss, third-party complaint, statute of limitations, motion for sanctions, attorney work-product, default judgment

Commercial appraisals tax valuation tax appeals Board of Tax Appeals reversible error abuse of discretion. The Board of Tax Appeals did not commit reversible error or abuse its discretion. The Board, on remand from the Ohio Supreme Court, considered each of the valuation approaches and issued its decision based on the comparison of the two separate appraisals. Appellant's issues of concern for comparison of the differing appraisals were previously addressed by the Ohio Supreme Court and further, were not subject to the court's remand. Based on the Ohio Supreme Court's remand and the Board's review of the differing appraisals, the Board of Tax Appeals' determination was based on reliable and probative support.

The plaintiff property owner sought to recover damages from the defendants, two churches, for alleged oil contamination of his property. Inspections by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection revealed the presence of fuel oil in the soil and in the groundwater of the plaintiff's property. The department's report further indicated that the source of the fuel oil originated from an underground oil tank that had been removed from the defendants' property, but the report could not rule out a secondary source of oil contamination originating from the plaintiff's property. Although the defendants paid for some environmental remedia- tion of the plaintiff's property pursuant to a contract, they declined to pay for additional remediation, despite recommendations by the department and the plaintiff's consultant that such additional remediation was neces- sary. During a trial to the court, the plaintiff and the defendants offered competing expert testimony as to the cause of the oil contamination that existed on the plaintiff's property, including potential sources of the contamination other than the defendants' underground storage tank. The trial court expressly rejected the testimony of several expert wit- nesses as not credible. The trial court subsequently concluded that the defendants demonstrated that there was a secondary source of the oil contamination of the plaintiff's property and, therefore, the plaintiff failed to prove his allegations that the defendants caused the pollution beneath the plaintiff's residence. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants, and the plaintiff appealed to this court, claiming that the court's determination that there was a secondary source of oil contamination in his basement was clearly erroneous and that the court's decision was based on speculation and was legally unsound. Held that the trial court improperly rendered judgment in favor of the defendants, as there was no credible evidence to support th

The trial court erred when it granted Appellees' motion to dismiss pursuant to Civ.R. 12(B)(6).

The plaintiffs, a medical group, together with former physician shareholders of the medical group, sought to vacate an arbitration award in favor of the defendant, who filed an application to confirm the award, which was issued in connection with the plaintiffs' alleged breach of a shareholder employment agreement. The arbitrator denied and dismissed the defen- dant's claims against the physician shareholders but issued an award on his claim against the medical group. In their application to vacate the award, the plaintiffs claimed that the award was not mutual, final and definite because the arbitrator had failed to allocate arbitration costs, expenses and compensation and set forth a reasoned award with respect to the issue of attorney's fees, having failed to award attorney's fees to the physician shareholders. The trial court denied the plaintiffs' application to vacate the award, granted the defendant's application to confirm the award and rendered judgments thereon, from which the plaintiffs appealed to this court. Held that the trial court properly granted the defendant's motion to confirm the arbitration award: the plaintiffs failed to sustain the heavy burden necessary to vacate an arbitration award pursuant to statute (§ 52-418) as they failed to present a reasoned legal argument for why the award should be vacated on the ground that the arbitrator failed to allocate arbitration costs, expenses and compensation, the arbitrator's award of attorney's fees was reasoned and the arbitrator's failure to explain his decision denying attorney's fees for the physician shareholders did not constitute grounds to vacate the award. Argued February 11—officially released July 21, 2020

The defendant administrator of the Unemployment Compensation Act appealed to this court from the judgment of the Superior Court sustaining the plaintiff's appeal from the decision of the Board of Review of the Employment Security Appeals Division, which affirmed the determina- tion by an appeals referee that the plaintiff was not entitled to certain unemployment benefits. The plaintiff, who had been employed by A Co., had been found eligible for unemployment benefits by the adminis- trator. A Co. appealed from that decision, and the appeals referee, following a hearing, reversed the decision of the administrator to award benefits to the plaintiff. The plaintiff, who did not attend the hearing before the appeals referee, thereafter filed a motion to open the referee's decision, arguing that he had not received notice of the hearing. The referee denied the plaintiff's motion on the ground that he had not established good cause for his failure to participate in the hearing, finding that, the notice had been properly mailed to the plaintiff at his usual address where he had received all other notices, the notice had not been returned as undeliverable, and the plaintiff had admitted that he may have inadvertently discarded the notice. The board subsequently affirmed the decision of the referee, concluding that the evidence sup- ported the referee's findings and conclusion. Thereafter, the plaintiff appealed to the Superior Court, which found that there was no evidence that the defendant had properly mailed notice of the hearing before the appeals referee and remanded the case for a de novo appeal hearing before the referee. Held that the Superior Court exceeded its scope of authority by assessing the factual findings of the referee, as adopted by the board, and determining that because there was no evidence to support the referee's findings, the board had acted unreasonably, ille- gally, or in abuse of its discretion by denying the plaintiff's motion to open; in an appea

Mandamus—R.C. 5153.17 imposes no duty on county children-services agency to allow relators to inspect or copy agency's records of their childhood history, and agency director's good-cause determination did not create such duty—Relators failed to establish clear legal right to inspect or copy the records—Writ denied.

To establish a wrongful termination in violation of public policy claim, the plaintiff must establish the (1) clarity (2) jeopardy (3) causation (4) and overriding justification elements of the requisite legal test. A plaintiff may establish a gender discrimination claim by demonstrating he or she was (1) a member of a protected class (2) was qualified for the job (3) suffered an adverse employment action and (4) was treated differently than a similarly situated non minority coworker who had engaged in the same or similar conduct. To establish a perceived disability discrimination claim, the plaintiff need not demonstrate that he or she has a qualifying disability under Ohio's discrimination law but must demonstrate that he or she was perceived by the employer as being disabled.

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant, an attorney, for alleged statutory theft arising from the defendant's conduct during prior judicial proceedings involving the foreclosure of the plaintiff's property. The defendant, acting as attorney for B Co., brought an action against the plaintiff to foreclose a municipal lien that B Co. had pur- chased from the city of Bridgeport. The plaintiff thereafter commenced this action alleging that the defendant, in the course of the foreclosure proceeding, made false representations to the court with the intent to default the plaintiff for failure to appear and to render a judgment of strict foreclosure. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant intended to deprive the plaintiff of his property and/or to appropriate the property to B Co., committing theft pursuant to statute (§ 52-564). The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that the defendant was protected by absolute immunity pursuant to the litigation privilege, and, from the judgment rendered thereon, the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court properly granted the defendant's motion to dismiss, this court having determined, as a matter of first impression, that the defen- dant was protected by absolute immunity from the plaintiff's action for statutory theft under § 52-564: following an evaluation of the competing public policy considerations, including the underlying purpose of judicial proceedings, the similarity between statutory theft and claims of fraud and defamation, which are protected by the privilege, and the availability of other remedies, this court reasoned that the plaintiff's claim of statu- tory theft did not require a consideration of whether the underlying purpose of the foreclosure litigation was improper, rather, the plaintiff's claim raised the issue of whether an attorney's conduct, while represent- ing a client during a judicial proceedi

Civ.R. 12(B)(1)/motion to dismiss subject-matter jurisdiction arbitration agreement labor dispute interest arbitration R.C. Chapter 4117/Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act R.C. 306.12/employee rights after acquisition Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964/section 13(c) Agreement. The labor dispute in this case is otherwise governed by R.C. 4117.10 and 306.12, and those statutes apply. The arbitration provision under the section 13(c) Agreement is not controlling here. Because SERB has exclusive jurisdiction over this case, the trial court did not err where it granted appellee's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

ARBITRATION - motion to stay proceedings and compel arbitration R.C. 2711.22 R.C. 2711.23 patient healthcare provider nursing facility arbitration agreement unenforceable as to injuries received prior to execution "entered into prior to" R.C. 2711.01 scope of the agreement agreement to arbitrate existing dispute or controversy contract within a contract consideration "meeting of the minds."

The trial court did not err in concluding the Village and the Harrisburg defendants were entitled to immunity as employees of a political subdivision, and the trial court did not err in rendering judgment in favor of appellees. Additionally, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Wilkins' motion for new trial.

The self-represented, incarcerated plaintiff brought this action against the defendant, a former state correctional institution administrative captain, claiming violations of his federal constitutional rights. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant retaliated against him for providing legal advice to his fellow inmates by ordering the search of the plaintiff's cell, the seizure of items from his cell, and the removal of the plaintiff from his job at the prison's gym. Following a trial to the court, the court rendered judgment in favor of the defendant, finding that the plaintiff failed to prove that he was engaged in an activity protected by the first amendment, that he was denied access to the courts in a specific, pending, personal action, and that there was any causal connection between his alleged protected conduct and the defendant's alleged retal- iatory acts. From that judgment, the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the trial court properly rendered judgment in favor of the defendant, as that court's finding that the plaintiff had failed to prove a causal connection between his conduct and the defendant's alleged retaliation was not clearly erroneous: the court concluded that there was no evidence of a retaliatory motive on the basis of the defendant's testimony, which the court expressly found was credible, and the court noted that the only evidence to establish a causal relationship between the discharge of the plaintiff from his gym job and any claimed protected activity was that of temporal proximity, which the court found insuffi- cient to establish a causal connection; ample evidence supported the court's finding that the defendant's actions that the plaintiff alleged were retaliatory were premised solely on legitimate motives, and, although the plaintiff pointed to evidence that he asserted supported his claim of retaliation, the mere existence of evidence to support an alternative conclusion is not sufficient to reverse a trial court's fin