Case Title: State ex rel. Glasstetter v. Rehab. Servs. Comm.

Citation: 2009-Ohio-3507

Docket Number: 20082231

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2009-07-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Glasstetter v. Rehab. Servs. Comm., 122 Ohio St.3d 432, 2009-Ohio-3507.] 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. GLASSTETTER, APPELLANT, v. REHABILITATION 
SERVICES COMMISSION ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Glasstetter v. Rehab. Servs. Comm.,  
122 Ohio St.3d 432, 2009-Ohio-3507.] 
Civil service — Redesignation of position as unclassified with no change in job 
duties — Fallback rights inapplicable — R.C. 124.11(D). 
(No. 2008-2231 — Submitted May 19, 2009 — Decided July 23, 2009.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 08AP-56,  
179 Ohio App.3d 196, 2008-Ohio-5755. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from a judgment denying a writ of mandamus to 
compel appellees, the Rehabilitation Services Commission and its executive 
director, to reinstate a former employee to her classified position as Human 
Resources Administrator 3 retroactively to June 21, 2006, with back pay and 
related benefits.  Because appellant is not entitled to the requested extraordinary 
relief in mandamus, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Glasstetter’s State Employment 
{¶ 2} Appellant, Eydie Glasstetter, was employed beginning in 1992 by 
the state of Ohio in the unclassified position of Human Resources Administrator 2 
at the Department of Commerce.  She transferred to the Bureau of Employment 
Services, where she was promoted to Human Resources Administrator 3, another 
unclassified position. 
State Employment with Rehabilitation Services Commission 
{¶ 3} In 1998, the Rehabilitation Services Commission posted an 
opening for a job in the same Human Resources Administrator 3 position.  The 
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job posting listed the position with the commission as a classified position.  
Glasstetter transferred into that position in October 1998. 
{¶ 4} In April 2006, appellee John M. Connelly, the executive director of 
the commission, told her that he wanted to redesignate her position as 
unclassified.  Connelly is the appointing authority for the commission.  Connelly 
had concluded that based on the duties performed by Glasstetter in her Human 
Resources Administrator 3 job, she was in the unclassified service, but had 
erroneously been designated as being in the classified service.  Glasstetter claimed 
that Connelly offered her the following choice ─ either (1) she could remain 
classified and the commission would hire another employee with the same 
classification and duties who would be above her or (2) she could agree to the 
redesignation of the position as unclassified. 
{¶ 5} Although she objected, Glasstetter ultimately consented to “go 
unclassified because it was not a risk.”  She claimed that Connelly responded that 
she was right because she had “fallback rights.”  Directed by Connelly to 
complete the paperwork necessary to redesignate her position as unclassified, 
Glasstetter executed a written acknowledgement on May 22 accepting the 
commission’s redesignation of her position as unclassified: 
{¶ 6} “I hereby accept the redesignation of my position of Human 
Resource Administrator 3.  I understand that the position, effective 5-29-06, has 
been designated as unclassified by the Rehabilitation Services Commission.  I 
acknowledge that the position is in the unclassified civil service of the State of 
Ohio pursuant to Ohio Revised Code section 124.11(A)(9).  I further understand 
that I may be entitled to ‘fall-back’ rights under Ohio Revised Code section 
124.11(D).” 
Removal from State Employment and Appeals to SPBR 
{¶ 7} A few days after Glasstetter was redesignated as an unclassified 
employee, Connelly requested that she be investigated.  Glasstetter was 
January Term, 2009 
3 
subsequently notified that she was the target of a disciplinary investigation.  
Through her attorney, Glasstetter then advised Connelly that she was exercising 
“her fallback rights to resume the same classified position and status held 
immediately prior to her forced appointment to the unclassified service.”  
Connelly rejected Glasstetter’s claim that she was entitled to fallback rights. 
{¶ 8} In August 2006, Connelly notified Glasstetter that based upon the 
investigative report, he was considering terminating her from her employment 
with the commission.  He provided Glasstetter with the opportunity to submit any 
statement and documentation to prevent her termination.  Glasstetter submitted a 
statement generally denying that she had done anything wrong or that the 
commission had just cause for her removal.  Effective August 21, 2006, Connelly 
terminated Glasstetter from her position of Human Resources Administrator 3.  
She appealed the removal order to the State Personnel Board of Review 
(“SPBR”). 
{¶ 9} The commission issued another order in December 2006 
specifying that based on the investigative report, Glasstetter had been removed 
from her position for cause pursuant to R.C. 124.34, i.e., for “[d]ishonesty, failure 
of good behavior & engaging in retaliatory conduct.”  Glasstetter also appealed 
that order to SPBR. 
{¶ 10} SPBR determined in both appeals that it lacked jurisdiction to 
review Glasstetter’s claim that she had been denied her fallback rights.  SPBR 
stayed the appeals to allow the parties the opportunity to resolve the issue through 
a mandamus action. 
Federal Case 
{¶ 11} In February 2007, Glasstetter filed a complaint in the United States 
District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, against the 
commission, Connelly, and another commission administrator.  She raised both 
federal and state claims, including that appellees had refused to recognize her 
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fallback rights, and requested damages and reinstatement to her fallback position 
of Human Resources Administrator 3.  In March 2008, the federal district court 
granted partial judgment on the pleadings in favor of the defendants.  Glasstetter 
v. Rehabilitation Servs. Comm. (Mar. 28, 2008), S.D. Ohio case No. 2:07-cv-125, 
2008 WL 886137.  The court rejected Glasstetter’s claim that she had been denied 
her fallback rights.  Id. at *8-10. 
Mandamus Case 
{¶ 12} In January 2008, Glasstetter filed a complaint in the Court of 
Appeals for a writ of mandamus to compel the commission and Connelly to honor 
her fallback rights and to reinstate her to the position of Human Resources 
Administrator 3 in the classified service effective June 2006.  Glasstetter also 
requested an award of back pay and benefits.  Appellees filed an answer, and the 
parties filed motions for summary judgment. 
{¶ 13} In November 2008, the court of appeals granted appellees’ motion 
for summary judgment and denied the writ.  The court of appeals reasoned that 
Glasstetter had no fallback rights under R.C. 124.11(D), that appellees were not 
estopped from denying these rights to her, and that Glasstetter’s remaining claims 
were properly left to the SPBR in her pending administrative appeals. 
{¶ 14} This cause is now before the court upon Glasstetter’s appeal as of 
right. 
Mandamus Requirements 
{¶ 15} To be entitled to the requested writ, Glasstetter must establish a 
clear legal right to the requested relief, a corresponding clear legal duty on the 
part of the commission and Connelly to provide it, and the lack of an adequate 
remedy in the ordinary course of the law.  See, e.g., State ex rel. Myles v. 
Brunner, 120 Ohio St.3d 328, 2008-Ohio-5097, 899 N.E.2d 120, ¶ 10. 
R.C. 124.11(D) Fallback Provision 
January Term, 2009 
5 
{¶ 16} Glasstetter claims that the court of appeals erred in denying the 
writ because R.C. 124.11(D) conferred a right upon her to reinstatement to her 
classified position.  Because she had no right to appeal appellees’ alleged denial 
of her statutory fallback rights, the dispositive issue in resolving Glasstetter’s 
mandamus claim is whether she established a clear legal right to the classified 
position and a corresponding clear legal duty on the part of the commission and 
its executive director to reinstate her to that position.  See R.C. 124.03; State ex 
rel. Asti v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Servs., 107 Ohio St.3d 262, 2005-Ohio-6432, 838 
N.E.2d 658, ¶ 18-19. 
{¶ 17} The applicable version of R.C. 124.11(D) provides: 
{¶ 18} “An appointing authority whose employees are paid directly by 
warrant of the auditor of the state may appoint a person who holds a certified 
position in the classified service within the appointing authority’s agency to a 
position in the unclassified service within that agency.  A person appointed 
pursuant to this division to a position in the unclassified service shall retain the 
right to resume the position and status held by the person in the classified service 
immediately prior to the person’s appointment to the position in the unclassified 
service, regardless of the number of positions the person held in the unclassified 
service.  Reinstatement to a position in the classified service shall be to a position 
substantially equal to that position in the classified service held previously, as 
certified by the director of administrative services.”  2000 Sub.S.B. No. 173, 148 
Ohio Laws, Part IV, 9392-9393. 
{¶ 19} In construing R.C. 124.11(D), “our paramount concern is the intent 
in enacting” it.  State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Jones-Kelley, 118 Ohio St.3d 
81, 2008-Ohio-1770, 886 N.E.2d 206, ¶ 17.  We discern intent by reading words 
and phrases in context and in accordance with the rules of grammar and common 
usage.  State ex rel. Lorain v. Stewart, 119 Ohio St.3d 222, 2008-Ohio-4062, 893 
N.E.2d 184, ¶ 35.  In common usage, “appoint” means “to assign, designate, or 
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set apart by authority,” “position” is defined as “the group of tasks and 
responsibilities making up the duties of an employee,” and “reinstatement” means 
“the action of reinstating (as in a post or position formerly held but relinquished).”  
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (2002) 105, 1769, and 1915; cf. 
Ohio Adm.Code 123:1-47-01(A), which provides comparable definitions for 
purposes of administrative rules relating to state employment. 
{¶ 20} As both the court of appeals and the federal district court 
concluded, Glasstetter was never appointed to a position in the unclassified 
service.  That is, she was never assigned to a separate position with different job 
duties.  Instead, throughout her employment with the Rehabilitation Services 
Commission, Glasstetter remained in the same position ─ Human Resources 
Administrator 3 ─ with the same job duties.  Moreover, she was never separated 
from that position.  As the federal district court determined, there was thus “no 
position for her to ‘fall back’ to, other than the one she already occupied.”  
Glasstetter, S.D. Ohio No. 2:07-cv-125, 2008 WL 886137, at *8. 
{¶ 21} And as the federal district court further noted, Glasstetter’s 
contentions also fail “from a practical perspective”: 
{¶ 22} “If, as [Glasstetter] contends, ‘fallback rights’ applied not only to 
an ‘appointment’ to a different position, but also to a status re-designation of the 
same position, the effect would be to make any erroneous designation as 
‘classified’ a permanent and binding one.  Once an employee’s status was 
described as ‘classified,’ a public employer could never effectively ‘correct’ the 
mis-designation, because an employee could always ‘fall back’ to a classified 
status in the very same position the employee had always occupied.  An outgoing 
administration could hamstring the incoming one simply by designating all its 
political appointees as ‘classified.’  When the incoming administration attempted 
to replace them, the appointees could claim to ‘fall back’ to classified status in the 
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very same high-ranking policy-making jobs they had occupied moments before.”  
Glasstetter, 2008 WL 886137, at *9. 
{¶ 23} The result is thus consistent with our duty to construe statutes to 
avoid unreasonable results.  R.C. 1.47(C); see also State ex rel. Toledo Blade Co. 
v. Seneca Cty. Bd. of Commrs., 120 Ohio St.3d 372, 2008-Ohio-6253, 899 N.E.2d 
961, ¶ 31. 
{¶ 24} Glasstetter’s reliance on Asti, 107 Ohio St.3d 262, 2005-Ohio-
6432, 838 N.E.2d 658, Leibson v. Ohio Dept. of Mental Retardation & Dev. 
Disabilities (1992), 84 Ohio App.3d 751, 618 N.E.2d 232, and Esselburne v. Ohio 
Dept. of Agriculture (1985), 29 Ohio App.3d 152, 29 OBR 180, 504 N.E.2d 434, 
in support of her claimed entitlement to fallback rights under R.C. 124.11(D) is 
misplaced.  The dispositive issue in Asti was whether a state employee ever had 
any fallback rights, and we held that under the applicable version of R.C. 
124.11(D), the employee had an unqualified right to ensure his previous position 
in the classified service or a substantially similar position.  Id. at ¶ 25-26.  In 
addition, the employee in Asti was appointed to an unclassified position of bureau 
chief.  Id. at ¶ 3.  Leibson is distinguishable because it did not involve R.C. 
124.11(D), and the classified employee there was promoted to an unclassified 
position.  In Esselburne, 29 Ohio App.3d at 160, the court reasoned that a 
classified position can be changed to an unclassified one where the employee is a 
fiduciary employee under R.C. 124.11(A)(9). 
{¶ 25} Therefore, because Glasstetter is not entitled to fallback rights 
under R.C. 124.11(D), she is not entitled to the writ of mandamus ordering her 
reinstatement to her classified position of Human Resource Administrator 3 
within the commission. 
Remaining Claims 
{¶ 26} Glasstetter also raises various other claims, including that she 
could not have been redesignated as an unclassified employee absent her 
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voluntary consent and that the commission and its executive director did not 
properly remove her from her employment with the commission. 
{¶ 27} Mandamus will not issue if there is a plain and adequate remedy in 
the ordinary course of law.  R.C. 2731.05. “An administrative appeal generally 
provides an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law that precludes 
extraordinary relief in mandamus.”  State ex rel. Hilltop Basic Resources, Inc. v. 
Cincinnati, 118 Ohio St.3d 131, 2008-Ohio-1966, 886 N.E.2d 839, ¶ 23.  
“Mandamus may not be employed as a substitute for a civil-service appeal.”  State 
ex rel. Turner v. Houk, 112 Ohio St.3d 561, 2007-Ohio-814, 862 N.E.2d 104, ¶ 9. 
{¶ 28} Glasstetter has an adequate remedy by her pending appeals to the 
SPBR and further appeal to the court of common pleas from any adverse SPBR 
decisions to raise her claims that she remained a classified employee and that she 
was improperly removed from the classified service.  See State ex rel. Baker v. 
State Personnel Bd. of Review (1999), 85 Ohio St.3d 640, 644, 710 N.E.2d 706; 
State ex rel. Weiss v. Indus. Comm. (1992), 65 Ohio St.3d 470, 474, 605 N.E.2d 
37.  Therefore, she is not entitled to a writ of mandamus on her remaining claims. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 29} For the foregoing reasons, Glasstetter failed to establish her 
entitlement to the requested extraordinary relief in mandamus.  We affirm the 
judgment of the court of appeals denying the writ. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., and LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL, and 
CUPP, JJ., concur. 
 
LANZINGER, J., concurs in judgment only. 
 
PFEIFER, J., dissents and would reverse the judgment of the court of 
appeals. 
__________________ 
 
Buckley King, L.P.A., and James E. Melle, for appellant. 
January Term, 2009 
9 
 
Richard Cordray, Attorney General, and Jack W. Decker and Nicole S. 
Moss, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellees. 
_____________________