Case Title: State ex rel. Toledo Metro Fed. Credit Union v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm.

Citation: 1997-Ohio-192

Docket Number: 19962014

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 1997-06-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
The State ex rel. Toledo Metro Federal Credit Union, Appellant, v. Ohio Civil 
Rights Commission, Appellee. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Toledo Metro Fed. Credit Union v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm. 
(1997),   Ohio St.3d   .] 
Mandamus to compel Ohio Civil Rights Commission to rule on relator’s 
petition to revoke or modify its subpoena of relator’s loan 
documents -- Writ denied when relator has an adequate legal 
remedy by way of administrative appeal under R.C. 4112.06. 
 
(No. 96-2014 -- Submitted April 15, 1997 -- Decided June 4, 1997.) 
 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 95APD10-
1294. 
 
In December 1994, appellant, Toledo Metro Federal Credit Union (“Toledo 
Metro”), denied Sandy M. Russell’s loan application.  Shortly thereafter, Russell 
filed a charge with appellee, Ohio Civil Rights Commission (“commission”), 
asserting that Toledo Metro had discriminated against her by denying her loan 
application based on her race. 
 
In April 1995, the commission issued a subpoena duces tecum ordering 
Toledo Metro to provide it with (1) information concerning another individual’s 
credit history and loan application, and (2) all documents of persons with credit 
 
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histories similar to Russell’s whose loans were approved or disapproved.  Toledo 
Metro filed a petition with the commission to revoke or modify the subpoena 
pursuant to R.C. 4112.04(B)(3)(d).  Toledo Metro objected to the first request to 
the extent it involved irrelevant, personal information concerning the specified 
individual and claimed that the remaining general request was “unduly onerous 
and burdensome.”   
 
Without any commission ruling on Toledo Metro’s petition, a commission 
representative advised Russell that she intended to recommend that the 
commission find probable cause that Toledo Metro had engaged in an unlawful 
discriminatory practice.  The representative recommended the probable cause 
finding based on an adverse inference from Toledo Metro’s failure to comply with 
the commission’s subpoena.  In September 1995, after the failure of voluntary 
conciliation efforts, the commission issued a determination that it was probable 
that Toledo Metro had engaged in unlawful discriminatory practices. The 
commission noted that Toledo Metro had failed to provide the information 
requested by its subpoena.  The commission subsequently denied Toledo Metro’s 
request for reconsideration, and in December 1995, it issued a complaint alleging 
 
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that it was probable that Toledo Metro had committed unlawful discriminatory 
practices.   
 
Prior to the commission’s issuance of the foregoing complaint, Toledo 
Metro filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals for Franklin County for a writ of 
mandamus to compel the commission “to rule on [Toledo Metro’s] Petition to 
Revoke or Modify the Subpoena, to modify such subpoena duces tecum so as to 
eliminate its overly broad and burdensome nature, and to compel the [commission] 
to vacate its probable cause finding.”  Following the presentation of evidence and 
briefs, the court of appeals denied the writ. 
 
The cause is now before this court on Toledo Metro’s appeal as of right. 
 
___________________ 
 
Eastman & Smith Ltd., John T. Landwehr and Margaret A. Mattimoe, for 
appellant. 
 
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and David A. Oppenheimer, 
Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. 
____________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  Toledo Metro asserts in its various propositions of law that the 
court of appeals erred in denying the writ.  The court of appeals determined that 
 
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although the commission failed to perform its legal duty to address the merits of 
Toledo Metro’s petition to revoke or modify the commission’s subpoena, Toledo 
Metro had an adequate remedy by way of appeal under R.C. 4112.06 from any 
subsequent adverse commission determination.   
 
A writ of mandamus will not be issued if there exists a plain and adequate 
remedy in the ordinary course of law.  R.C. 2731.05; In re Estate of Davis (1996), 
77 Ohio St.3d 45, 46, 671 N.E.2d 9, 10.  R.C. 4112.06(A) provides for appeal to a 
common pleas court by any party “claiming to be aggrieved by a final order of the 
commission, including a refusal to issue a complaint ***.” 
 
Toledo Metro initially claims that an appeal under R.C. 4112.06 does not 
provide an adequate legal remedy because the common pleas court’s review of any 
adverse commission determination following a hearing on Russell’s complaint 
would be limited under R.C. 4112.06(E) to a determination of whether the 
commission’s factual findings are supported by reliable, probative, and substantial 
evidence.  Toledo Metro contends that the common pleas court could not address 
the propriety of the commission’s probable cause finding in an appeal under R.C. 
4112.06. 
 
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Toledo Metro’s contentions are meritless.  A common pleas court’s 
appellate jurisdiction under R.C. 4112.06 is not restricted to a review of the 
commission’s factual findings.  Other issues, including the commission’s 
jurisdiction to issue a complaint or constitutional questions, may be raised on 
appeal.  See, e.g., State ex rel. East Mfg. Corp. v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm. (1992), 
63 Ohio St.3d 179, 586 N.E.2d 105; May v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm. (1989), 58 
Ohio App.3d 56, 568 N.E.2d 716.  More specifically, we have held that alleged 
errors concerning the manner in which the commission conducts an investigation 
of a discrimination charge “are properly raised on appeal *** pursuant to R.C. 
4112.06.”  State ex rel. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm. 
(1983), 6 Ohio St.3d 426, 428, 6 OBR 471, 473, 453 N.E.2d 601, 603.  Therefore, 
Toledo Metro is not precluded from raising its allegations concerning the 
commission’s possible errors in its investigation and probable cause determination 
in an appeal under R.C. 4112.06. 
 
In addition, as the court of appeals determined, even assuming that Toledo 
Metro could not challenge the commission’s probable cause determination and 
decision to issue a complaint in the R.C. 4112.06 appeal, this does not justify 
extraordinary relief in mandamus: 
 
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“If the evidence adduced at hearing demonstrates that more likely than not 
Toledo Metro had been issuing loans and refusing loans on race-based criteria, 
then the defects in the probable cause determination process are irrelevant.  If no 
finding of impermissible discrimination is forthcoming, the issues are moot.” 
 
In other words, Toledo Metro has an adequate remedy at law to challenge 
the discrimination charge via the hearing on the complaint and an appeal from any 
subsequent adverse commission determination on the merits of the complaint.  Cf., 
e.g., Continental Ins. Co. v. Whittington (1994), 71 Ohio St.3d 150, 642 N.E.2d 
615, syllabus (“Any error by a trial court in denying a motion for summary 
judgment is rendered moot or harmless if a subsequent trial on the same issues 
raised in the motion demonstrates that there were genuine issues of material fact 
supporting a judgment in favor of the party against whom the motion was made.”). 
 
Toledo Metro next asserts that this case involves “special circumstances” 
that render the remedy of appeal inadequate.  Absent special circumstances or a 
“dramatic fact pattern,” postjudgment appeal constitutes a complete, beneficial, 
and speedy remedy. See, e.g., State ex rel. Westbrook v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm. 
(1985), 17 Ohio St.3d 215, 217, 17 OBR 449, 451, 478 N.E.2d 799, 802; Fraiberg 
v. Cuyahoga Cty. Court of Common Pleas (1996), 76 Ohio St.3d 374, 379, 667 
 
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N.E.2d 1189, 1194; cf. State ex rel. Cody v. Toner (1983), 8 Ohio St.3d 22, 8 OBR 
255, 456 N.E.2d 813.  Toledo Metro advances no circumstances or facts that are 
sufficiently compelling to avoid the presence of the legally adequate appellate 
remedy and warrant the requested writ. 
 
Toledo Metro also complains that postjudgment appeal is not speedy 
because the evidentiary hearing before the commission “generally require[s] nine 
months to a year or more before the conclusion.”  But this claim is meritless.  
Whitehall ex rel. Wolfe v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm. (1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 120, 124, 
656 N.E.2d 684, 688 (“Wolfe’s claims that the OCRC proceeding and any appeal 
under R.C. 4112.06 to a common pleas court from any adverse OCRC decision 
would be inadequate due to time and expense are also without merit.”); State ex 
rel. Willis v. Sheboy (1983), 6 Ohio St.3d 167, 6 OBR 225, 451 N.E.2d 1200, 
paragraph one of the syllabus (“Where a constitutional process of appeal has been 
legislatively provided, the sole fact that pursuing such process would encompass 
more delay and inconvenience than seeking a writ of mandamus is insufficient to 
prevent the process from constituting a plain and adequate remedy in the ordinary 
course of the law.”). 
 
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Finally, mandamus may not be employed as a substitute for an appeal from 
an interlocutory order.  State ex rel. Newton v. Court of Claims (1995), 73 Ohio 
St.3d 553, 555, 653 N.E.2d 366, 369.  Toledo Metro’s mandamus claim is an ill-
conceived attempt to garner review of interlocutory commission orders. 
 
Based on the foregoing, the court of appeals properly determined that 
Toledo Metro was not entitled to the requested extraordinary relief in mandamus 
because it has an adequate legal remedy by way of administrative appeal under 
R.C. 4112.06.  Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.