Blog

https://www.ohioappeals.com/

The Ohio Appellate Insights blog, published by Porter Wright Morris & Arthur’s Appellate practice group, provides practice pointers, tips, best practices and strategic thinking guides on how to maximize outcomes within the Ohio appellate courts.

Recent Blog Posts

  • Seeking to proceed under a pseudonym in Ohio State Court?  By Brad Hughes    Prepare for a Challenge… A recent decision by Ohio’s Second District Court of Appeals addresses a couple of topics that have been recurring features on this blog: final appealable orders and secrecy in litigation. As to the former, we have previously discussed the complexity of characterizing orders that either grant or deny preliminary injunctive relief as either final, appealable orders (or not), in our recent blog posts found here and here. As to the latter, in early 2022, we... More
  • Understanding the Ohio Supreme Court timing requirements By Terry Posey    Yet another reminder: The mandatory nature of the Ohio Supreme Court’s Rules of Practice   In Ohio state-court litigation, most timing deadlines are not automatic and can be “finessed” if need be (aside from the mandatory 30-day time period to file a notice of appeal). The Ohio Supreme Court, however, treats most of the timing rules in the Ohio Supreme Court Rules of Practice as dispositive of the issue presented. What you need to know about timing rules Some of these... More
  • Appellate review of provisional judicial orders: If it quacks like a duck… By Grace Karabinus    This article highlights new developments on the subject of a former Ohio Appellate Insights post considering the authority of appellate courts to immediately review appeals from provisional orders. In that prior post, the blog addressed the First District’s decision in Preterm-Cleveland et al. v. Yost, Atty Gen., et al., in which the First District held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear an appeal from what it characterized as a non-final order granting a preliminary injunction and enjoining enforcement of... More
  • ‘Appealing’ from no sealing: Recent Fifth District decision highlights procedural wrinkle in rules of superintendence By Brad Hughes    Benjamin Franklin remarked in Poor Richard’s Almanack that “three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” Keeping secrets is indeed a tricky business, and none the less so in civil litigation. Over the course of their careers in the law, the authors of this blog have perceived an increase in litigants’ attempts to maintain substantial amounts of information related to their cases under seal, even as they seek redress (or seek to defend themselves) in... More
  • Ohio General Assembly expands venues for administrative appeals By Brad Hughes    As Ohio attorneys who focus on appellate issues, one of the trusty treatises we often consult in our practice is former First District Court of Appeals Judge Mark Painter’s seminal Ohio Appellate Practice handbook, published by Baldwin. If you don’t have it in your library but enjoy appellate work, we highly recommend it. And for years, in the section pertaining to administrative appeals taken under Ohio’s Administrative Procedure Act, commonly known as “Chapter 119 appeals,” Judge Painter’s... More
  • 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