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Recent Blog Posts

• Does your judge need a nudge? Consider the Ohio Supreme Court’s recently launched Case Inquiry Form By Brad Hughes    Time may be of the essence, but the wheels of justice turn slowly The Ohio Supreme Court has recently focused on initiatives to enhance the timelier administration of justice. The Rules of Superintendence for the Courts of Ohio, for example, impose time limits for appellate and civil cases as indicated on the Supreme Court’s case-management reporting forms.  Those Rules also impose 120-day time limits for rulings on most motions and require judges to self-report decisions that have not been ruled... More
• The first checklist question: Is there a final appealable order? By Mac Kelly    On Aug. 7, 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in Kyser v. Summit County Children Services (discretionary case number 2022-1419 and certified conflict case number 2023-0126) for lack of a final appealable order under R.C. 2506.01 on a 5-2 vote. The decision came after full rounds of substantive briefing in the trial court, intermediate appellate court, and the Supreme Court of Ohio. On the eve of oral argument before the Supreme Court of Ohio, the court requested briefing... More
• Doing the impossible: How to get an extension to file a memorandum in response to a memorandum in support of jurisdiction at the Ohio Supreme Court By Terry Posey    Discretionary appeals at the Ohio Supreme Court are under strict timing requirements pursuant to Supreme Court Rules of Practice 7.01(A). Absent an application for reconsideration or a motion for en banc review in the lower court, a notice of appeal and a memorandum in support of jurisdiction must be filed within 45 days of the judgment being appealed. Under Rule 7.02(E), the Clerk of the Supreme Court is under instructions not to file an untimely notice of appeal... More
• A new day for legal citation in Ohio By Brad Hughes    In early 2023, Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy of the Supreme Court of Ohio announced the Court’s intent to streamline the legal citation process in Ohio. In furtherance of that goal, the Court formed a new committee tasked with proposing changes to The Supreme Court of Ohio Writing Manual, a guide for formatting legal citations in state court. The Writing Manual Revision Committee’s proposed changes were adopted by the Court in Feb. 2024 and the new edition of the... More
• 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 Porter Wright    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