Case Title: State ex rel. Ware v. Walsh

Citation: 2020-Ohio-769

Docket Number: 2019-0772

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2020-03-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
ex rel. Ware v. Walsh, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-769.] 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2020-OHIO-769 
THE STATE EX REL. WARE, APPELLANT, v. WALSH, PROS. ATTY., APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Ware v. Walsh, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-769.] 
Mandamus—Inmate failed to provide in affidavit listing prior civil actions 
information required by R.C. 2969.25(A)(4)—Court of appeals’ dismissal 
of petition affirmed. 
(No. 2019-0772—Submitted December 10, 2019—Decided March 5, 2020.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Summit County, No. 29344. 
__________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} In March 2019, appellant, Kimani Ware, a prison inmate, filed a 
complaint for a writ of mandamus in the Ninth District Court of Appeals alleging 
that Summit County Prosecuting Attorney Sherri Bevan Walsh failed to properly 
respond to a public-records request.  The Ninth District dismissed the complaint, 
determining that Ware had not complied with R.C. 2969.25(A).  Ware appealed to 
this court as of right.  We affirm. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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{¶ 2} R.C. 2969.25(A) requires an inmate commencing a civil action 
against a government employee in a court of appeals to file an affidavit that contains 
“a description of each civil action or appeal of a civil action that the inmate has 
filed in the previous five years in any state or federal court.”  “[T]he statute requires 
strict compliance.”  State ex rel. Swanson v. Ohio Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., 156 
Ohio St.3d 408, 2019-Ohio-1271, 128 N.E.3d 193, ¶ 6.  Because it is undisputed 
that Ware is an inmate and that Walsh is a government employee, Ware was 
required to comply with R.C. 2969.25(A). 
{¶ 3} With his complaint, Ware filed an affidavit listing six civil actions he 
had filed within the previous five years.  The affidavit included information 
required under R.C. 2969.25(A)(1) through (3).  But the Ninth District held that 
Ware did not comply with R.C. 2969.25(A)(4), which requires the inmate to 
describe 
 
[t]he outcome of the civil action or appeal, including whether the 
court dismissed the civil action or appeal as frivolous or malicious 
under state or federal law or rule of court, whether the court made 
an award against the inmate or the inmate’s counsel of record for 
frivolous conduct under section 2323.51 of the Revised Code, 
another statute, or a rule of court, and, if the court so dismissed the 
action or appeal or made an award of that nature, the date of the final 
order affirming the dismissal or award. 
 
Although Ware’s affidavit states that none of the listed actions was deemed by a 
court to be frivolous or malicious, it does not provide any information describing 
the outcome of the actions as required under R.C. 2969.25(A)(4). 
{¶ 4} “The requirements of R.C. 2969.25 are mandatory and failure to 
comply with them requires dismissal of an inmate’s complaint.”  State ex rel. Hall 
January Term, 2020 
 
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v. Mohr, 140 Ohio St.3d 297, 2014-Ohio-3735, 17 N.E.3d 581, ¶ 4.  Because Ware 
did not strictly comply with the statute, the court of appeals correctly dismissed 
Ware’s complaint. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, 
and STEWART, JJ., concur. 
_________________ 
Kimani Ware, pro se. 
Sherri Bevan Walsh, Summit County Prosecuting Attorney, and Colleen 
Sims, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
_________________