Case Title: Wilson v. Kasich

Citation: 2012-Ohio-612

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2012-02-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Wilson v. Kasich, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-612.] 
 
 
 
 
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. 2012-OHIO-612 
WILSON ET AL. v. KASICH, GOVERNOR, ET AL. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Wilson v. Kasich, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-612.] 
Apportionment—Laches bars claim contesting validity of apportionment decision 
for 2012 elections—Challenge to constitutionality of apportionment 
dismissed in part. 
(No. 2012-0019—Submitted February 7, 2012—Decided February 17, 2012.) 
ORIGINAL ACTION filed pursuant to Article XI, Section 13  
of the Ohio Constitution. 
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Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is an original action in which relators, 36 electors living in 
various  districts for the Ohio House of Representatives as reapportioned by the 
Ohio Apportionment Board on September 30, 2011, seek declaratory and 
injunctive relief.  They seek declaratory and injunctive relief against respondents, 
the four Republican members of the five-member Ohio Apportionment Board—a 
declaration that the apportionment plan adopted by the board is invalid because 
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the board failed to comply with Article XI of the Ohio Constitution, which 
governs the decennial apportionment of districts in the General Assembly, and the 
Open Meetings Law, R.C. 121.22, and a prohibitory injunction preventing these 
board members from calling, holding, supervising, administering, or certifying 
any elections under their apportionment plan. 
Jurisdiction 
{¶ 2} Relators claim that this court has original jurisdiction over their 
claims pursuant to Article XI, Section 13 of the Ohio Constitution, which 
specifies that “[t]he supreme court of Ohio shall have exclusive, original 
jurisdiction in all cases arising under this Article.”  (Emphasis added.) 
{¶ 3} Relators’ open-meetings claim, however, does not arise under 
Article XI; instead, it arises under R.C. 121.22.  Nor do relators assert that they 
are invoking the court’s original jurisdiction under Article IV, Section 2(B)(1).  
Instead, they specifically deny that they are.  And without the applicability of 
Article XI, Section 13 to relators’ open-meetings claim, we lack jurisdiction over 
this claim for declaratory and injunctive relief.  See ProgressOhio.org, Inc. v. 
Kasich, 129 Ohio St.3d 449, 2011-Ohio-4101, 953 N.E.2d 329, ¶ 2. 
{¶ 4} Therefore, we lack jurisdiction over relators’ open-meetings claim 
and dismiss it. 
Laches 
{¶ 5} We also deny relators’ Article XI claims insofar as they relate to 
the 2012 election cycle based on laches.  “We have consistently required relators 
in election cases to act with the utmost diligence.”  Blankenship v. Blackwell, 103 
Ohio St.3d 567, 2004-Ohio-5596, 817 N.E.2d 382, ¶ 19.  “Laches may bar an 
action for relief in an election-related matter if the persons seeking this relief fail 
to act with the requisite diligence.”  Smith v. Scioto Cty. Bd. of Elections, 123 
Ohio St.3d 467, 2009-Ohio-5866, 918 N.E.2d 131, ¶ 11. 
January Term, 2012 
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{¶ 6} To the extent that relators’ claims contest the validity of 
respondents’ apportionment decision for the upcoming 2012 elections, laches bars 
their claims.  Relators unreasonably delayed 96 days from the apportionment 
board’s September 30, 2011 decennial apportionment before commencing this 
action on January 4, 2012, challenging the apportionment: they do not have a 
legitimate excuse for much of this prolonged delay, they knew or should have 
known of the board’s apportionment plan and its alleged constitutional defects 
near the time it was approved by the board in late September, and their 
unreasonable delay has caused prejudice to boards of elections, candidates, and 
the public, who have all relied on respondents’ apportionment plan setting the 
state legislative districts for the imminent 2012 elections. 
{¶ 7} For the remaining state legislative elections—the 2014, 2016, 
2018, and 2020 elections—affected by respondents’ September 30, 2011 
apportionment plan, however, laches does not bar relators’ claims.  These 
elections are, unlike the 2012 elections, not imminent.  This result is consistent 
with the principles that laches is an equitable doctrine, State ex rel. Commt. for 
the Referendum of Lorain Ordinance No. 77-01 v. Lorain Cty. Bd. of Elections, 96 
Ohio St.3d 308, 2002-Ohio-4194, 774 N.E.2d 239, ¶ 35, and that “the 
fundamental tenet of judicial review in Ohio is that courts should decide cases on 
their merits.”  State ex rel. Becker v. Eastlake, 93 Ohio St.3d 502, 505, 756 
N.E.2d 1228 (2001).  See also State ex rel. Walker v. Bowling Green, 69 Ohio 
St.3d 391, 393, 632 N.E.2d 904 (1994), quoting Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 
585, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964) (“absent special circumstances 
justifying the withholding of immediate relief such as where an election is 
imminent, ‘once a State’s legislative apportionment scheme has been found to be 
unconstitutional, it would be the unusual case in which a court would be justified 
in not taking appropriate action to insure that no further elections are conducted 
under the invalid plan’ ”); Martin v. Soucie, 109 Ill.App.3d 731, 736, 441 N.E.2d 
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131 (1982) (six-month delay in instituting a challenge to a June 1981 
apportionment plan barred relief regarding imminent 1982 elections based on 
laches but did not bar relief regarding future elections). 
Conclusion 
{¶ 8} Therefore, we dismiss relators’ open-meetings claim for lack of 
subject-matter jurisdiction, and we deny relators’ Article XI claims based on 
laches insofar as they attempt to challenge the use of the apportionment plan for 
the 2012 election cycle.  Relators’ remaining Article XI claims are not barred by 
laches, and we will issue a separate order for further briefing and oral argument 
on those claims. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, WILLAMOWSKI, LANZINGER, CUPP, and 
MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
O’DONNELL, J., concurs in part and dissents in part. 
JOHN R. WILLAMOWSKI, J., of the Third Appellate District, sitting for 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, J. 
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O’DONNELL, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part. 
{¶ 9} I concur in the decision to dismiss relators' open-meetings claim 
for declaratory relief, as we lack jurisdiction to entertain that claim. 
{¶ 10} I respectfully dissent from the resolution of the constitutional 
challenge to the decennial apportionment of districts in the manner chosen by the 
majority, which I find unprecedented in our jurisprudence, unwise, and fraught 
with problems as precedent for future apportionment challenges.  The court's 
obligation is to review these matters expeditiously, and it should do so. 
__________________ 
 
Wesp/Barwell/Pierre-Louis Co., L.L.C., and Lloyd Pierre-Louis; Murray 
& Murray Co., L.P.A., and Dennis E. Murray Jr.; Perkins Coie, L.L.P., and Marc 
January Term, 2012 
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Erik Elias, Kevin J. Hamilton, Abha Khanna, and Noah Guzzo Purcell, for 
relators. 
 
Baker & Hostetler, L.L.P., John H. Burtch, E. Mark Braden, and Robert J. 
Tucker, for respondents Governor John Kasich, Senate President Thomas E. 
Niehaus, and Auditor David Yost. 
 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Pearl M. Chin, Assistant 
Attorney General, for respondent Governor John Kasich. 
 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Jeannine R. Lesperance and 
Renata Staff, Assistant Attorneys General, for respondent Auditor David Yost. 
 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Jeannine R. Lesperance and 
Sarah Pierce, Assistant Attorneys General, for respondent Senate President 
Thomas E. Niehaus. 
 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Richard N. Coglianese, Michael 
J. Schuler, and Erin Butcher-Lyden, Assistant Attorneys General, for respondent 
Secretary of State Jon Husted. 
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