Case Title: Davis v. Nathaniel

Citation: 2022-Ohio-751

Docket Number: 2021-0170

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2022-03-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Davis v. Nathaniel, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-751.] 
 
 
 
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. 2022-OHIO-751 
DAVIS, APPELLANT, v. NATHANIEL ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Davis v. Nathaniel, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-751.] 
R.C. 2505.02(B)—Court of appeals’ judgment vacated for lack of final, appealable 
order, and cause remanded to trial court for further proceedings. 
(No. 2021-0170―Submitted November 10, 2021―Decided March 16, 2022.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Summit County, 
No. 29761, 2020-Ohio-6858. 
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{¶ 1} The judgment of the court of appeals is vacated for lack of a final, 
appealable order, see R.C. 2505.02(B), and the cause is remanded to the trial court 
for further proceedings. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, and 
STEWART, JJ., concur. 
BRUNNER, J., dissents, with an opinion. 
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SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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BRUNNER, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 2} I respectfully disagree with this court’s decision to vacate the court of 
appeals’ judgment on the ground that the trial court’s June 2, 2020 order is not a 
final, appealable order under R.C. 2505.02.  Further, I would hold that plaintiff-
appellant, Rachel Davis, may not seek companionship under R.C. 3109.11, and 
thus, I would affirm the court of appeals’ judgment. 
{¶ 3} This case involves three sisters—Davis, defendant-appellee Tammie 
Nathaniel, and Lora Davis-Mullins, who died in 2013.  Davis-Mullins had three 
children, and before she died, both she and the children’s biological father 
consented to the adoption of the children by Nathaniel and her husband Jeffrey, 
who is also a defendant-appellee.  The decrees of adoption were issued in 
January 2014.  The adoptions are final, and nothing about the Nathaniels’ status as 
the children’s adoptive parents is disputed.  Under R.C. 3107.15(A)(2), each final 
decree of adoption therefore operated to “create the relationship of parent and child 
between petitioner and the adopted person, as if the adopted person were a 
legitimate blood descendant of the petitioner, for all purposes.” 
{¶ 4} The issue we agreed to consider in this appeal concerns whether Davis 
may pursue a claim for companionship with the children under R.C. 3109.11.  That 
statute provides:   
 
If either the father or mother of an unmarried minor child is 
deceased, the court of common pleas of the county in which the 
minor child resides may grant the parents and other relatives of the 
deceased father or mother reasonable companionship or visitation 
rights with respect to the minor child during the child’s minority if 
the parent or other relative files a complaint requesting reasonable 
companionship or visitation rights and if the court determines that 
January Term, 2022 
 
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the granting of the companionship or visitation rights is in the best 
interest of the minor child. 
 
(Emphasis added.)  R.C. 3109.11. 
{¶ 5} I would hold that Davis may not bring a claim for companionship 
under R.C. 3109.11.  Our precedent makes clear that Davis cannot do so based on 
her status as Davis-Mullins’s sister.  See In re Martin, 68 Ohio St.3d 250, 254, 626 
N.E.2d 82 (1994).  The child in Martin had been adopted by the biological maternal 
grandparents.  The biological paternal grandparents then sought visitation under 
R.C. 3109.12, which concerns companionship and visitation with a child born to an 
unmarried mother but is similar to R.C. 3109.11 in all material respects.  We held 
that the biological paternal grandparents could not proceed under R.C. 3109.12, 
because R.C. 3107.15 terminated the legal relationship on which their claim was 
based. 
{¶ 6} Davis argues that this case is different from Martin because she is also 
Nathaniel’s sister, which means that she remains the children’s maternal aunt after 
the adoptions.  That difference does not change the result.  A claim based on Davis’s 
status as Nathaniel’s sister necessarily relies on Nathaniel’s status as the children’s 
adoptive parent.  Such a claim is prohibited by the plain text of R.C. 3109.11, 
however, because Nathaniel and her husband are still alive.  In short, Davis can 
point to no status that entitles her to seek companionship under R.C. 3109.11. 
{¶ 7} The majority does not address these issues.  Instead, presumably 
based on counsel’s responses to questioning at oral argument, it vacates the court 
of appeals’ judgment for lack of a final, appealable order under R.C. 2505.02(B).  
The parties should have been presented an opportunity to brief the final-and-
appealable-order issue before this court sua sponte decides that issue. 
{¶ 8} R.C. 2505.02(B)(2) permits the appeal of “[a]n order that affects a 
substantial right made in a special proceeding or upon a summary application in an 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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action after judgment.”  R.C. 2505.02(A)(2) defines “special proceeding” as “an 
action or proceeding that is specially created by statute and that prior to 1853 was 
not denoted as an action at law or a suit in equity.”  A “substantial right” is “a right 
that the United States Constitution, the Ohio Constitution, a statute, the common 
law, or a rule of procedure entitles a person to enforce or protect.”  
R.C. 2505.02(A)(1).  An action seeking companionship under R.C. 3109.11 is a 
special proceeding.  The only question is whether the order that led to this appeal 
affects a substantial right. 
{¶ 9} On February 5, 2020, a magistrate appointed a guardian ad litem for 
the Nathaniels’ children.  Davis was pursuing only a claim for legal custody at that 
time.  In a separate order entered that same day, the magistrate stated in paragraph 
10 that Davis would have to be permitted to interact with the children for the 
purpose of allowing the guardian to complete her investigation related to Davis’s 
custody claim.  The Nathaniels moved the trial court to set aside paragraph 10 on 
the ground that they do not want the children to have any interaction with Davis.  
They argued that by requiring such interaction, paragraph 10 violates their 
fundamental rights as parents. 
{¶ 10} On June 2, 2020, the trial court issued the order at issue in this 
appeal.  It first permitted Davis to amend her complaint from a claim for custody 
to a claim for companionship under R.C. 3109.11.  The trial court then denied the 
Nathaniels’ motion to set aside paragraph 10.  It provided no explanation for its 
decision on that issue, other than stating that the magistrate would “have an 
opportunity to hear from all parties in making a further determination as to whether 
companionship is appropriate in this case.” 
{¶ 11} As counsel for the Nathaniels made clear at oral argument before this 
court, the key point that caused them to appeal the June 2 order was the fact that 
the order requires that Davis have contact with the children against their wishes as 
parents.  Had the trial court appointed a guardian ad litem without ordering contact 
January Term, 2022 
 
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between the children and Davis, the Nathaniels would still have maintained that 
Davis may not pursue companionship with the children, but they would have raised 
that argument in an appeal from an adverse judgment, if one were entered. 
{¶ 12} We have held that “[a]n order affects a substantial right ‘only if an 
immediate appeal is necessary to protect the right effectively.’ ”  Crown Servs., Inc. 
v. Miami Valley Paper Tube Co., 162 Ohio St.3d 564, 2020-Ohio-4409, 166 N.E.3d 
1115, ¶ 16, quoting Wilhelm-Kissinger v. Kissinger, 129 Ohio St.3d 90, 2011-Ohio-
2317, 950 N.E.2d 516, ¶ 7.  In applying this rule, we have asked whether an order 
“immediately and definitely affects the party” holding the right and whether it 
“imposes a permanent effect because it is unlikely to be reconsidered as a trial 
progresses.”  Wilhelm-Kissinger at ¶ 9-10; see also Thomasson v. Thomasson, 153 
Ohio St.3d 398, 2018-Ohio-2417, 106 N.E.3d 1239, ¶ 27, 34 (applying Wilhelm-
Kissinger and holding that an order appointing a guardian ad litem to represent an 
adult in a divorce case without first finding the adult incompetent affected a 
substantial right and was therefore final and appealable under R.C. 2505.02(B)(2)). 
{¶ 13} It is clear under well-established law that the Nathaniels have a 
fundamental constitutional right in the care, custody, and control of their adoptive 
children.  See Harrold v. Collier, 107 Ohio St.3d 44, 2005-Ohio-5334, 836 N.E.2d 
1165, ¶ 40, quoting Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 
L.Ed.2d 49 (2000) (plurality opinion) (“ ‘it cannot now be doubted that the Due 
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of 
parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their 
children’ ”). 
{¶ 14} The trial court’s order immediately interferes with the Nathaniels’ 
parenting of the children, which includes their wishes that the children not have 
contact with Davis based on their judgment that such contact is not in their 
children’s interest.  An appeal at the conclusion of the case in the trial court will 
not remedy the interference with the parents’ wishes in this regard.  The trial court’s 
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June 2 order improperly inserted the court into “the private realm of the family,” 
Troxel at 68, and it did so without the court’s having considered the two aspects of 
R.C. 3109.11 that we have held make the statute constitutional: (1) the statute limits 
the parties who may seek companionship and (2) the statute, as interpreted in 
Harrold, requires that a trial court give “special weight” to the wishes of the 
parents, see Harrold at ¶ 41-42.  The trial court’s June 2 order reflects no 
consideration whether Davis is a party who may seek companionship with the 
Nathaniels’ children, and it gives no weight whatsoever to the wishes of the 
Nathaniels.  Nor does the trial court’s order provide any explanation for the court’s 
decision to deny the Nathaniels’ motion to set aside paragraph 10 or its decision to 
permit Davis to convert her claim for custody into a claim for companionship, 
fundamentally changing the nature of the proceeding.  Given these facts, along with 
the clarity of the law establishing that Davis may not pursue companionship under 
R.C. 3109.11, I would conclude that the trial court’s June 2 order is final and 
appealable under R.C. 2505.02(B)(2) and I would affirm the court of appeals’ 
judgment. 
{¶ 15} Because the majority holds otherwise, I respectfully dissent. 
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Leslie S. Graske, for appellant, Rachel Davis. 
Miller & Grosscup Law Firm, L.L.C., and Lee Grosscup, for appellees, 
Tammie and Jeff Nathaniel. 
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