Case Title: Klein v. Streicher

Citation: 2001-Ohio-1583

Docket Number: 20001847

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2001-10-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Klein v. Streicher, 93 Ohio St.3d 446, 2001-Ohio-1583] 
 
 
KLEIN ET AL., APPELLEES, v. STREICHER, CHIEF OF POLICE, ET AL., 
APPELLANTS. 
[Cite as Klein v. Streicher (2001), 93 Ohio St.3d 446.] 
Court of appeals’ judgment reversed on authority of R.C. 2505.02 and Guccione 
v. Hustler Magazine, Inc. 
(No. 00-1847 — Submitted August 28, 2001 — Decided October 17, 2001.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County, No. C-000678. 
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The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed on the authority of R.C. 
2505.02 and Guccione v. Hustler Magazine, Inc. (1985), 17 Ohio St.3d 88, 17 
OBR 211, 477 N.E.2d 630. 
 
DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER and LUNDBERG STRATTON, 
JJ., concur. 
 
MOYER, C.J., and COOK, J., dissent. 
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COOK, J., dissenting.  This court granted a discretionary appeal in this 
case to decide whether the denial of a motion for admission pro hac vice is a final 
appealable order under R.C. 2505.02, as amended by Sub.H.B. No. 394 in 1998.  
The majority resolves this issue summarily, citing a case involving the 
preamendment version of R.C. 2505.02 and overlooking a procedural infirmity 
that should prevent us from reaching the issue upon which we granted review.  I 
must therefore respectfully dissent. 
 
The record transmitted to this court contains a document purporting to be a 
copy of an entry from the trial court denying the city’s motion for admission pro 
hac vice of two out-of-state attorneys.  This document, which the city of 
Cincinnati attached to its notice of appeal in the court of appeals, is the only copy 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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of the supposed trial court entry that was ever a part of the appellate record.  This 
copy, however, shows no file stamp by the trial court clerk.  Without a file-
stamped entry from the trial court, there is no final appealable order over which to 
exercise appellate jurisdiction.  State v. Domers (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 592, 575 
N.E.2d 832. 
 
The record suggests that the court of appeals dismissed the city’s appeal 
before the trial court clerk ever transmitted the record to the court of appeals.  
Thus, it is quite possible that the trial court record contains a validly journalized 
entry denying the city’s motion for admission pro hac vice.  On the record before 
us, however, we have no way of knowing whether the trial court actually 
journalized the order that is at the heart of this case.  We therefore cannot reach 
the issue upon which we granted review and should dismiss the cause as having 
been improvidently allowed. 
 
Even if the issue had been properly presented to this court, I would 
nevertheless decline to join the majority’s summary disposition of the case.  The 
majority decides this case “on the authority of R.C. 2505.02 and Guccione v. 
Hustler Magazine, Inc. (1985), 17 Ohio St.3d 88, 17 OBR 211, 477 N.E.2d 630,” 
making it appear as though the court of appeals failed to apply settled law in 
dismissing the appeal below.  But the question presented to this court is not as 
simple as the majority’s summary reversal makes it appear. 
 
In Guccione, this court decided that an order denying permission for out-
of-state counsel to represent a litigant in a civil case was a final appealable order 
under the pre-H.B. 394 version of R.C. 2505.02.  The court reasoned that such an 
order affected a “substantial right” and was made in a “special proceeding.”  In 
concluding that the order was made in a special proceeding, the court applied the 
balancing test formulated in Amato v. Gen. Motors Corp. (1981), 67 Ohio St.2d 
253, 21 O.O.3d 158, 423 N.E.2d 452.  Under the Amato test, we evaluated 
whether an order was made in a special proceeding by balancing “the harm to the 
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‘prompt and orderly disposition of litigation,’ and the consequent waste of judicial 
resources, resulting from the allowance of an appeal, with the need for immediate 
review because appeal after final judgment is not practicable.”  Id. at 258, 21 
O.O.3d at 161, 423 N.E.2d at 456.  Because a litigant would have little chance of 
mounting an effective postjudgment appeal of an order excluding out-of-state 
counsel, the Guccione court concluded that the Amato balancing test favored 
immediate appealability.  Guccione, 17 Ohio St.3d at 90, 17 OBR at 212, 477 
N.E.2d at 632. 
 
Today’s summary reversal gives the impression that the Guccione 
rationale remains alive and well in Ohio law.  To the contrary, however, the legal 
analysis underlying Guccione is no longer viable.  R.C. 2505.02, as amended by 
H.B. 394, defines a “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.”   R.C. 2505.02(A)(2).  The amendment codified this 
court’s holding in Polikoff v. Adam (1993), 67 Ohio St.3d 100, 616 N.E.2d 213, 
which expressly overruled Amato and abandoned the balancing test that provided 
the foundation for Guccione’s holding.  If the majority views Guccione as having 
some continued vitality under current R.C. 2505.02, notwithstanding that statute’s 
substantive amendments and this court’s holding in Polikoff, this court should 
explain to the bench and bar how that is so rather than simply citing it in a 
summary disposition. 
 
MOYER, C.J., concurs in the foregoing dissenting opinion. 
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Gustavson, Lewis & Jones Co., L.P.A., William M. Gustavson and Timothy 
Smith, for appellees. 
 
Fay D. Dupuis, City Solicitor, and Richard Ganulin, Assistant City 
Solicitor, for appellants. 
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