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• Two recent decisions by Ohio appellate courts caution counsel against undue reliance upon health emergencies to delay trials By Brad Hughes    The COVID-19 pandemic introduced some new flexibility into the traditionally rigid legal workplace. For those working in downtown offices, the traffic on the daily commute was certainly better. And remote work options allowed counsel to take depositions from the comfort of their home offices. Got a hearing coming up on a motion? Fine, let’s conduct it via Zoom. Big oral argument coming up? No problem — the court says that can be done on Microsoft Teams. The pandemic... More
• Thinking about appellate strategy with Michael Hendershot, Ohio Solicitor General’s Office By Terry Posey    We’ve had conversations with judges, but for this installment, I will be discussing appellate strategy with Michael Hendershot, Deputy Solicitor General at the Ohio Solicitor General’s Office. Michael has served as a law clerk for on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a law clerk for an Ohio Supreme Court Justice, an attorney in private practice, and since 2008, with the Solicitor General’s office, where he has briefed and argued more than 30 appeals at the Ohio Supreme... More
• U.S. Supreme Court agrees to resolve Dupree circuit split By Brad Hughes    Imagine that your client has been sued for damages in federal court. In a motion for summary judgment, you assert what you believe to be a valid and compelling legal defense, such as the plaintiff’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies. There are no facts in dispute regarding the defense—it presents a purely legal question for the judge to resolve before any trial takes place. Yet the judge denies your dispositive motion, and so you proceed to a jury... More
• Changing rules to eliminate consent requirements for amicus briefs – how far will they go? By Brad Hughes    In mid-December 2022, Larry Ebner, the well-known appellate advocate behind Capital Appellate Advocacy in Washington, D.C., published an op-ed at Law360 titled Federal Courts Should Follow Supreme Court’s Amicus Stance. In this op-ed, Ebner noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had announced revisions to its rules, effective Jan. 1, 2023, that eliminate the requirement for amici curiae to obtain the parties’ consent, or the court’s permission, to file their amicus briefs. Ebner went on to argue that the... More
• The tricky business of appealing from decisions granting preliminary injunctive relief By Brad Hughes    Members of our firm’s Appellate Practice Group are consulted regularly by our colleagues about procedural issues arising from so-called interlocutory appeals. In other words, appeals taken (or attempted to be taken) from decisions by trial courts at some point before final judgment. These issues can arise in a wide variety of contexts because the universe of interlocutory decisions from which someone may wish to immediately appeal is so broad, and the primarily applicable Ohio statute (R.C. 2505.02) can... More
• Appellate practitioners take note: Ohio Supreme Court has rejected mandatory deference to agencies’ interpretations of rules and statutes By Brad Hughes    As many readers of this blog likely will be aware, the doctrine of administrative deference — the extent to which courts may properly defer to agencies’ interpretations of statutes and/or rules — has been a hot topic in recent years in the United States Supreme Court. In Kisor v. Wilkie, for example, the Supreme Court addressed a three-step process for how courts, in litigation, should consider deference to an agency’s interpretation of its own rule, by asking: is the rule... More
• Ohio Supreme Court reminder: Strict rules compliance required for page limits and attachments By Terry Posey    It happens a few times a year – an entry in the Ohio Supreme Court’s daily announcements reads like this: 2022-1310. Leaf v. Leaf. Delaware App. No. 22 CAF 03 0016, 2022-Ohio-3301. Sua sponte, pages 16 through 18 of appellant’s memorandum in support of jurisdiction stricken for failure to comply with S.Ct.Prac.R. 7.02(B) (requiring that a memorandum “not exceed fifteen numbered pages, exclusive of the table of contents and the certificate of service”). Sua sponte, all documents in  appendix of... More
• Don’t forget about AAA’s Optional Appellate Arbitration Rules By Brad Hughes    Not long ago, one of the American Arbitration Association’s vice presidents stopped by our firm to bring us up to speed on some recent AAA developments and the new AAA rules in effect for commercial cases, effective Sept. 1, 2022. We at Ohio Appellate Insights think one of the topics she mentioned during her presentation — “AAA’s Optional Appellate Arbitration Rules” — is worth noting for our audience of appellate practitioners. Arbitration decisions are supposed to be quick and... More
• Ohio Supreme Court allows recovery of appellate attorney fees by prevailing parties who obtain punitive-damage awards and successfully defend judgments on appeal By Chris Riedel    As we noted last week, this time of year brings eventful decision days at the Ohio Supreme Court. And Wednesday, Oct. 12, continued the trend with the Supreme Court’s decision allowing recovery of appellate attorney fees by prevailing parties who obtain and successfully defend punitive-damage awards in Cruz v. English Nanny & Governess School. In Cruz, the plaintiffs initially prevailed in a wrongful termination suit at trial and were awarded compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees. The trial... More
• An eventful day at the Ohio Supreme Court By Brad Hughes    As we approach the end of an election year that includes multiple Ohio Supreme Court races, we know that the Justices of the Ohio Supreme Court and their law clerks are hard at work drafting opinions in all cases that have already been orally argued. This diligence is so that the court’s opinions in those cases can be voted on and released before the election may cause changes to the bench in January. We can expect several eventful... More