Case Title: State ex rel. Kerns v. Simmers

Citation: 2018-Ohio-256

Docket Number: 2016-1011

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2018-01-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
ex rel. Kerns v. Simmers, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-256.] 
 
*Reporter’s Note: This cause was decided on January 16, 2018, but was released to the public on 
January 30, 2018, subsequent to the resignation of Justice William M. O’Neill, who participated in 
the decision. 
 
 
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. 2018-OHIO-256 
THE STATE EX REL. KERNS ET AL. v. SIMMERS, CHIEF, ET AL. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Kerns v. Simmers, Slip Opinion No.  
2018-Ohio-256.] 
Mandamus—Oil and gas—Unitization—Takings—Appeal of unitization order to 
common pleas court under R.C. 1509.37 provided landowners with 
adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law—Writ denied. 
(No. 2016-1011—Submitted October 18, 2017—Decided January 16, 2018.*) 
IN MANDAMUS. 
_________________ 
DEWINE, J. 
{¶ 1} In this original mandamus action, a group of landowners (“the 
landowners”) seeks an order compelling the Ohio Department of Natural 
Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management (“the division”) and 
its chief, Richard Simmers, to commence appropriation proceedings to compensate 
the landowners for their land that was included in an oil-and-gas drilling unit.  The 
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chief issued an order requiring that a reservoir of oil and gas underlying multiple 
tracts of land be operated as a unit to recover the oil and gas.  The landowners object 
to the order, claiming that it amounted to a taking of their property for which they 
must be compensated.  But before we may consider their takings claim in 
mandamus, we must first determine that the landowners lacked an adequate remedy 
at law.  Because we conclude that they had an adequate remedy by way of appeal 
to the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, we deny their petition for a writ of 
mandamus. 
Background 
{¶ 2} Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C., submitted an application to the 
division seeking a unitization order under R.C. 1509.28.  Aimed at protecting 
property rights and preventing waste, unitization consolidates the mineral or 
leasehold interests in oil and gas underlying multiple tracts of land above a common 
reservoir.  See Amoco Prod. Co. v. Heimann, 904 F.2d 1405, 1410-1411 (10th 
Cir.1990).  According to R.C. 1509.28(A), the owner of at least 65 percent of the 
land above an underground reservoir may apply for a unitization order to “increase 
substantially the ultimate recovery of oil and gas.”  Chesapeake sought to aggregate 
tracts of land to form an approximately 593-acre unit to drill three horizontal wells 
and hydraulically fracture shale to recover oil and natural gas from an underground 
pool. 
{¶ 3} The unitization order would allow Chesapeake to drill wells that 
would remove oil and gas from under the landowners’ property.  The landowners, 
whose property accounts for 120 acres of the proposed unit, objected to 
Chesapeake’s application.  Over the landowners’ objection, the chief issued the 
unitization order and allocated royalty payments and net proceeds from production 
to the landowners.  The landowners appealed the unitization order to the Ohio Oil 
and Gas Commission (“the commission”), alleging that the order was “unlawful or 
unreasonable.”  Specifically, the landowners argued that Chesapeake had failed to 
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negotiate meaningfully with them for the lease of their property and that the order 
directs a taking of the landowners’ property without compensation in violation of 
the Ohio and United States Constitutions.  The commission dismissed the appeal, 
concluding that it did not have jurisdiction to determine the constitutionality of the 
order or of R.C. 1509.28. 
{¶ 4} Following the commission’s dismissal of their appeal, the landowners 
filed the instant petition for a writ of mandamus.  They again claim that the 
unitization effects an unconstitutional taking.  And they request that we issue a writ 
of mandamus compelling respondents to commence appropriation proceedings 
pursuant to R.C. Chapter 163.  But we cannot issue a writ of mandamus, because 
the landowners have not satisfied a requirement for this extraordinary remedy: they 
have not shown that they lack an adequate remedy at law. 
Mandamus Requirements 
{¶ 5} To be entitled to a writ of mandamus, the landowners need to show 
(1) that they have a clear legal right to appropriation proceedings, (2) that 
respondents have a clear legal duty to commence the proceedings, and (3) that the 
landowners have no plain and adequate legal remedy.  See State ex rel. Berger v. 
McMonagle, 6 Ohio St.3d 28, 29, 451 N.E.2d 225 (1983).  The absence of an 
adequate legal remedy goes to the heart of the extraordinary nature of the writ of 
mandamus.  Early in our writ jurisprudence, we recognized that mandamus was not 
to be used as an alternative to another remedy.  Rather, “[t]he writ of mandamus, at 
common law, was a prerogative writ, introduced to prevent discord from a failure 
of justice, and to be used on occasions where the law had established no specific 
remedy.”  Shelby v. Hoffman, 7 Ohio St. 450, 455 (1857).  Put another way, 
“whatever can be done without the employment of that extraordinary remedy, may 
not be done with it.”  Ex parte Rowland, 104 U.S. 604, 617, 26 L.Ed. 861 (1881).  
Here, a remedy has been established for the landowners—appeal to the Franklin 
County Common Pleas Court. 
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Appeals under R.C. Chapter 1509 Provide an Adequate Remedy 
{¶ 6} The General Assembly has provided a statutory framework for 
appealing orders issued under R.C. Chapter 1509.  Under R.C. 1509.36, “[a]ny 
person adversely affected by an order” may appeal to the commission for a review 
to determine if the order is unreasonable or unlawful.  If it is, the commission must 
vacate the order and make “the order that it finds the chief should have made.”  Id.  
The statute further provides that “[t]he order of the commission is final unless 
vacated by the court of common pleas of Franklin [C]ounty in an appeal as provided 
for in section 1509.37 of the Revised Code.”  Id. 
{¶ 7} R.C. 1509.37 in turn provides for appeals to the Franklin County 
Common Pleas Court on “questions of law and fact.”  Like the commission’s 
review under R.C. 1509.36, the court is to review the order to determine if it was 
“lawful and reasonable.”  R.C. 1509.37. 
{¶ 8} The landowners appealed the chief’s order to the commission under 
R.C. 1509.36.  And following the commission’s dismissal of their appeal, they 
could have appealed to the Franklin County Common Pleas Court.  Had the 
common pleas court determined, as the landowners argued to the commission, that 
R.C. 1509.28 is unconstitutional because it allows for the taking of property without 
compensation, the court would have vacated the order.  No taking would have 
occurred.  But the landowners did not file an appeal with the common pleas court.  
They now claim that such an appeal would not have provided them an adequate 
remedy. 
{¶ 9} The time for an appeal to the common pleas court has passed.  See 
R.C. 1509.37 (notice of appeal shall be filed within 30 days after receipt of notice 
from commission).  But the failure of the landowners to timely appeal to the 
common pleas court does not render the remedy inadequate. “If that were the case, 
this criterion for a writ of mandamus would be met whenever the opportunity to 
pursue another adequate remedy expired.  Would-be appellants could thwart the 
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appellate process simply by ignoring it.”  State ex rel. Cartmell v. Dorrian, 11 Ohio 
St.3d 177, 178, 464 N.E.2d 556 (1984). 
{¶ 10} An adequate remedy at law is one that is “complete, beneficial, and 
speedy.”  State ex rel. Natl. Elec. Contrs. Assn., Ohio Conference v. Ohio Bur. of 
Emp. Servs., 83 Ohio St.3d 179, 183, 699 N.E.2d 64 (1998).  The landowners argue 
that an appeal under R.C. 1509.37 would have been neither a complete nor a speedy 
remedy.  Neither argument is persuasive. 
A complete remedy 
{¶ 11} The landowners argue that even if the common pleas court had 
determined that R.C. 1509.28 is unconstitutional, they would not have been 
afforded a complete remedy.  They point to State ex rel. Arnett v. Winemiller, 80 
Ohio St.3d 255, 259, 685 N.E.2d 1219 (1997), in which we concluded that a 
declaratory-judgment action did not provide complete remedy when “ancillary 
extraordinary relief in the nature of a mandatory injunction” was also needed.  In 
Arnett, the relators sought an order compelling a clerk to certify a petition to put an 
ordinance on the ballot.  The clerk argued that the relators had an adequate 
remedy—a declaratory judgment.  But we noted that a declaratory judgment alone 
would not provide a complete remedy.  Instead, mandamus was needed to compel 
the clerk to place the ordinance on the ballot. 
{¶ 12} Unlike in Arnett, no further injunctive action would have been 
required had the landowners succeeded in an appeal to the common pleas court.  A 
finding that R.C. 1509.28 was unconstitutional would have invalidated the chief’s 
order.  No taking would have occurred, so there would have been no need for a writ 
compelling appropriation proceedings. 
{¶ 13} Nonetheless, the landowners maintain that an appeal to the common 
pleas court would be inadequate because R.C. 1509.37 allows only for an appeal 
on the record, rather than a de novo appeal.  It appears that the crux of the 
landowners’ argument on this point is that on the record that was developed thus 
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far, the trial court could not conduct an appropriation hearing and determine 
compensation.  But had the landowners appealed to the common pleas court, the 
question of the statute’s constitutionality would have been put before the court.  
Contrary to the landowners’ assertion, the review would not have been limited to 
whether the order was “just and reasonable.”  That is the standard for the chief’s 
initial decision to order unitization.  See R.C. 1509.28(A).  Instead, the court would 
have reviewed the order to determine whether it was “lawful and reasonable.”  R.C. 
1509.37.  And if the order did not meet constitutional requirements, the court could 
have invalidated the order as “unlawful.”  We conclude that the remedy provided 
by an appeal under R.C. 1509.37 was complete. 
A speedy remedy 
{¶ 14} The landowners also argue that appeal to the common pleas court 
was not sufficiently speedy.  They note that in State ex rel. Shemo v. Mayfield Hts., 
93 Ohio St.3d 1, 5, 752 N.E.2d 854 (2001), we determined that mandamus was 
appropriate because the recourse available to the relators in trial court would not be 
speedy enough.  But Shemo’s facts are quite different from those in this case.  There, 
after we had issued a decision invalidating zoning restrictions on the relators’ land, 
the city continued to block the relators’ development plans.  At the time we 
considered the petition for a writ of mandamus, the city’s delay tactics had deprived 
the relators of the legal use of their property for over nine years.  Given the delay, 
we concluded that an action in the trial court to enforce the judgment would not be 
sufficiently speedy.  Here, the landowners point to no other delays outside those 
normally attributed to appeals.  “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.”  State ex rel. Willis v. Sheboy, 6 Ohio St.3d 167, 451 N.E.2d 
1200 (1983), paragraph one of the syllabus.  Moreover, the statute emphasizes 
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speedy resolution.  Preference to a hearing under R.C. 1509.37 is to be given “over 
all other civil cases irrespective of the position of the proceedings on the calendar 
of the court.” 
Conclusion 
{¶ 15} The extraordinary writ of mandamus will not lie when there exists 
an adequate remedy at law.  Here, the landowners had an adequate remedy by way 
of an appeal to the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.  We therefore deny 
the writ. 
Writ denied. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, FRENCH, O’NEILL, and FISCHER, JJ., 
concur. 
KENNEDY, J., concurs in judgment only. 
_________________ 
 
Phillip J. Campanella, for relators. 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, Eric E. Murphy, State Solicitor, 
Samuel C. Peterson, Deputy Solicitor, and Brian J. Becker, Assistant Attorney 
General, for respondents. 
Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur, L.L.P., L. Bradfield Hughes, Christopher 
J. Baronzzi, and Ryan T. Steele, urging denial of the writ for amicus curiae 
American Petroleum Institute. 
Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, L.L.P., Gregory D. Russell, John J. 
Kulewicz, and Ilya Batikov, urging denial of the writ for amici curiae The Ohio Oil 
and Gas Association, The Southeastern Ohio Oil and Gas Association, Artex 
Energy Group, L.L.C., Ascent Resources – Utica, L.L.C., Carrizo (Utica), L.L.C., 
EnerVest Operating, L.L.C., and Hess Ohio Developments, L.L.C. 
McGinnis, Lochridge & Kilgore, L.L.P., and Bruce M. Kramer, urging 
denial of the writ for amicus curiae Bruce M. Kramer. 
_________________