Case Title: State ex rel. Crobaugh v. White

Citation: 2001-Ohio-102

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2001-05-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Crobaugh v. White, 91 Ohio St.3d 470, 2001-Ohio-102.] 
 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. CROBAUGH ET AL. v. WHITE, CLERK, ET AL. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Crobaugh v. White (2001), 91 Ohio St.3d 470.] 
Zoning — Mandamus sought to compel city of North Ridgeville and clerk of city 
council to remove the notations on the official zoning map for planned 
community development zoning for the Waterbury and Meadow Lakes 
developments — Cause dismissed, when. 
(No. 01-71 — Submitted March 27, 2001 — Decided May 23, 2001.) 
IN MANDAMUS. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  On September 20, 1999, the North Ridgeville City Council 
passed Ordinance No. 3491-99, which added Planned Community Development 
(“PCD”) District as a new zoning classification.  Under this ordinance, following 
approval by city council of a preliminary plan to develop land as a PCD District, 
the clerk of council has a duty to reflect the approval on the city’s zoning map: 
 
“Following approval of the application by Council, the Clerk shall cause a 
notation to be made on the Zoning Map to reflect the area which is included in the 
approved preliminary plan in a PCD District.  If the developer does not complete 
and file a final plan of a phase of the development area within one (1) year, the 
approval of the preliminary plan shall lapse and the notation of such approval 
shall be removed from the Zoning Map. 
 
“Following approval of the application by Council and the notation of the 
Zoning Map, the legislative process for rezoning the PCD shall be complete.  
Review and approval by Council of the PCD’s final development application shall 
be solely administrative in nature.”  (Emphasis added.) 
 
On October 2, 2000, the city council passed Ordinance No. 3621-2000, 
granting approval for the preliminary plan for a six-hundred-forty-acre PCD 
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known as Waterbury.  On October 16, 2000, the city council passed Ordinance 
No. 3628-2000, which approved the preliminary plan for a five-hundred-ninety-
five-acre PCD known as Meadow Lakes.  Respondent North Ridgeville Clerk of 
Council Jim White noted the PCD zoning for Waterbury and Meadow Lakes on 
the zoning map. 
 
On December 4, 2000, respondents, North Ridgeville and White, as well 
as the President of the North Ridgeville City Council, filed a complaint in the 
Lorain County Court of Common Pleas naming as defendants the committees for 
the referenda of Ordinance Nos. 3621-2000 and 3628-2000, committee members, 
and relators, North Ridgeville resident-taxpayers Chris Crobaugh, Ron Hawk, and 
Mike Tyson.  In that case, the plaintiffs requested a judgment declaring that the 
ordinances were validly passed as emergency measures in compliance with the 
North Ridgeville Charter and validly rezoned the Waterbury and Meadow Lakes 
properties. 
 
In January 2001, instead of confining their claims to the declaratory 
judgment action, Crobaugh, Hawk, and Tyson filed a complaint in this court for a 
writ of mandamus to compel North Ridgeville and White to remove the “illegal 
notations for PCD Zoning for the Waterbury and Meadow Lakes developments on 
the official zoning map.”  Respondents filed an answer, and Sunrise Development 
Company, which is under contract to purchase the Waterbury property, filed a 
motion for leave to intervene as a respondent and to file a motion to dismiss.  
Subsequently, FJD Properties, L.L.C. and All-Purpose Construction, Inc. filed a 
motion for leave to intervene as respondents and a motion to dismiss. 
 
This cause is now before the court for its S.Ct.Prac.R. X(5) determination. 
 
We must now determine whether dismissal, an alternative writ, or a 
peremptory writ is appropriate.  S.Ct.Prac.R. X(5).  Dismissal is appropriate if it 
appears beyond doubt, after presuming the truth of all material factual allegations 
and making all reasonable inferences in favor of relators, that they are not entitled 
January Term, 2001 
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to the requested extraordinary relief in mandamus.  State ex rel. DeBrosse v. Cool 
(1999), 87 Ohio St.3d 1, 3, 716 N.E.2d 1114, 1116. 
 
Dismissal is warranted here because respondents have no duty to remove 
the PCD classification from the North Ridgeville Zoning Map and relators have 
an adequate legal remedy by way of the pending declaratory judgment action to 
raise their claims. 
 
Neither the Clerk of the North Ridgeville Council nor North Ridgeville 
has any duty under the ordinances to remove the PCD classification from the 
Waterbury or the Meadow Lakes property.  In fact, the clerk had an express duty 
under Section A.08 of Ordinance No. 3491-99 to include notations for PCD 
zoning for these developments when the ordinances approving the preliminary 
development plans were passed by the city council.  That section states, 
“Following approval of the application by Council, the Clerk shall cause a 
notation to be made on the Zoning Map to reflect the area which is included in the 
approved preliminary plan in a PCD District.” 
 
Moreover, “[w]here parties to a mandamus action are also parties, or may 
be joined as parties, in a previously filed declaratory judgment action involving 
the same subject matter, a court, in the exercise of its discretion, may refuse to 
issue a writ of mandamus.”  State ex rel. Bennett v. Lime (1978), 55 Ohio St.2d 
62, 9 O.O.3d 69, 378 N.E.2d 152, syllabus; State ex rel. Huntington Ins. Agency, 
Inc. v. Duryee (1995), 73 Ohio St.3d 530, 537, 653 N.E.2d 349, 356.  Relators are 
parties to a pending, previously filed declaratory judgment action in common 
pleas court, and they can raise their claims challenging respondents’ interpretation 
of the ordinances or their constitutionality in that action.  See State ex rel. 
Grendell v. Davidson (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 629, 635, 716 N.E.2d 704, 710 
(“constitutional challenges to legislation are normally considered in an action in a 
court of common pleas rather than an extraordinary writ action filed here”); State 
ex rel. Linndale v. Teske (1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 1415, 655 N.E.2d 736.  And like 
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Grendell, 86 Ohio St.3d at 635, 716 N.E.2d at 710, this case does not involve a 
public right of the magnitude at issue in State ex rel. Ohio Academy of Trial 
Lawyers v. Sheward (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 451, 715 N.E.2d 1062. 
 
Finally, our judgment in State ex rel. Commt. for the Referendum of 
Ordinance No. 3543-00 v. White (2000), 90 Ohio St.3d 212, 736 N.E.2d 873, is 
not res judicata because we did not enter judgment on these claims in that cause. 
 
Based on the foregoing, we dismiss the cause.  This renders moot the 
remaining motions. 
Cause dismissed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER and LUNDBERG STRATTON, 
JJ., concur. 
 
DOUGLAS and COOK, JJ., concur in judgment. 
__________________ 
 
Phillips & Co., L.P.A., and Gerald W. Phillips, for relators. 
 
Eric H. Zagrans, North Ridgeville Law Director, for respondents. 
__________________