Title: State ex rel. Husband v. Shanahan

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State 
ex rel. Husband v. Shanahan, Slip Opinion No. 2019-Ohio-1853.] 
 
 
 
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. 2019-OHIO-1853 
THE STATE EX REL. HUSBAND, APPELLANT, v. SHANAHAN, JUDGE, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Husband v. Shanahan, Slip Opinion No.  
2019-Ohio-1853.] 
Mandamus—Erroneous application of R.C. 149.43—Rules of Superintendence for 
the Courts of Ohio apply to public-records requests from a court—Court of 
appeals’ dismissal affirmed. 
(No. 2018-0995—Submitted February 19, 2019—Decided May 16, 2019.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County, No. C-180042. 
________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Louis Husband, appeals the judgment of the First District 
Court of Appeals dismissing his petition for a writ of mandamus to compel 
appellee, Judge Megan E. Shanahan of the Hamilton County Court of Common 
Pleas, to provide public records relating to his incarceration.  We affirm. 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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Background 
{¶ 2} In 2006, Husband was convicted of aggravated burglary, abduction, 
and rape in the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court and was sentenced to 65 
years in prison.  In April and July 2016, Husband filed motions in the trial court 
seeking, respectively, the inspection and release under R.C. 149.43 of public 
records relating to his case.  In May and July 2016 entries, Judge Shanahan denied 
Husband’s motions, noting that Husband could access all publicly available records 
through the clerk of courts. 
{¶ 3} On January 22, 2018, Husband filed a petition for a writ of mandamus 
in the First District Court of Appeals, seeking to compel Judge Shanahan to release 
the court records relating to his case.  The court of appeals granted a motion to 
dismiss the writ, holding that since Husband is incarcerated, he is subject to R.C. 
149.43(B)(8), which requires the sentencing court to first determine that the court 
records are necessary to support a justiciable claim.  The court of appeals denied 
Husband’s motion for reconsideration.  Husband appealed. 
Law and Analysis 
{¶ 4} We review a dismissal under Civ.R. 12(B)(6) de novo.  State ex rel. 
McKinney v. Schmenk, 152 Ohio St.3d 70, 2017-Ohio-9183, 92 N.E.3d 871, ¶ 8.  A 
court can dismiss a mandamus action under Civ.R. 12(B)(6) “if, after all factual 
allegations of the complaint are presumed true and all reasonable inferences are 
made in the relator’s favor, it appears beyond doubt that he can prove no set of facts 
entitling him to the requested writ of mandamus.”  State ex rel. Russell v. Thornton, 
111 Ohio St.3d 409, 2006-Ohio-5858, 856 N.E.2d 966, ¶ 9. 
{¶ 5} The parties and the court of appeals erroneously applied the Ohio 
Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43, to Husband’s records request.  When a requester 
seeks public records from a court, the Rules of Superintendence for the Courts of 
Ohio apply.  State ex rel. Richfield v. Laria, 138 Ohio St.3d 168, 2014-Ohio-243, 4 
N.E.3d 1040, ¶ 8; see also Sup.R. 47(A)(1).  “Sup.R. 44 through 47 deal 
January Term, 2019 
 
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specifically with the procedures regulating public access to court records and are 
the sole vehicle for obtaining such records in actions commenced after July 1, 
2009.”  (Emphasis added.)  Laria at ¶ 8; see also State ex rel. Harris v. Pureval, 
155 Ohio St.3d 343, 2018-Ohio-4718, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Rules of Superintendence 
apply to inmate’s 2017 request for court records from the 1990s). 
{¶ 6} Husband improperly sought records under the Public Records Act 
rather than the Rules of Superintendence.  Although the court of appeals’ rationale 
for dismissing this case was incorrect, we will not reverse a correct judgment, Day 
v. Wilson, 116 Ohio St.3d 566, 2008-Ohio-82, 880 N.E.2d 919, ¶ 4. 
Judgment affirmed. 
FRENCH, FISCHER, DONNELLY, and STEWART, JJ., concur. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., concurs in judgment only, with an opinion. 
KENNEDY and DEWINE, JJ., concur in judgment only. 
_________________ 
O’CONNOR, C.J., concurring in judgment only. 
{¶ 7} I concur in the court’s judgment, but I would affirm both the rationale 
and the decision of the court of appeals finding that appellant, Louis Husband, is 
not entitled to the records he seeks, because he failed to comply with R.C. 
149.43(B)(8).  This court has previously affirmed the denial of an incarcerated 
person’s mandamus petition to compel the production of public records because he 
failed to obtain a release from the sentencing court prior to making the records 
request.  State ex rel. Fernbach v. Brush, 133 Ohio St.3d 151, 2012-Ohio-4214, 976 
N.E.2d 889, ¶ 2.  We should do so again here.1 
                                                 
1 This concurring opinion assumes that Husband was seeking records from the court because he 
filed his mandamus action against appellee, Judge Megan Shanahan.  To the extent Husband is not 
seeking records from the court but instead challenging the trial court’s decision on his motion for 
release of public records pursuant to R.C. 149.48(B)(8), Husband’s proper recourse was to appeal 
that decision. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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{¶ 8} The court of appeals determined that Ohio’s Public Records Act 
controls the outcome in this case.  I agree.  Through the Public Records Act, the 
legislature has granted a substantive right—the right to inspect and copy public 
records.  Rhodes v. New Philadelphia, 129 Ohio St.3d 304, 2011-Ohio-3279, 951 
N.E.2d 782, ¶ 19.  A subsection of the act, R.C. 149.43(B)(8), limits the right of 
inmates to access certain records.  When an incarcerated person requests those 
public records, R.C. 149.43(B)(8) exempts public-record holders from the 
requirement to make them available, without the sentencing court’s release: 
 
A public office or person responsible for public records is 
not required to permit a person who is incarcerated pursuant to a 
criminal conviction or a juvenile adjudication to inspect or to obtain 
a copy of any public record concerning a criminal investigation or 
prosecution or concerning what would be a criminal investigation or 
prosecution if the subject of the investigation or prosecution were 
an adult, unless the request to inspect or to obtain a copy of the 
record is for the purpose of acquiring information that is subject to 
release as a public record under this section and the judge who 
imposed the sentence or made the adjudication with respect to the 
person, or the judge’s successor in office, finds that the information 
sought in the public record is necessary to support what appears to 
be a justiciable claim of the person. 
 
{¶ 9} The majority opinion concludes that the Rules of Superintendence for 
the Courts of Ohio control here.  This court promulgated those rules pursuant to the 
Ohio Constitution, which vests us with “general superintendence over all courts in 
the state.”  Ohio Constitution, Article IV, Section 5(A)(1).  That power includes the 
authority to “prescribe rules governing practice and procedure in all courts of the 
January Term, 2019 
 
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state, which rules shall not abridge, enlarge, or modify any substantive right.”  Ohio 
Constitution, Article IV, Section 5(B).  We have held that the Rules of 
Superintendence “are the sole vehicle for obtaining such records,” State ex rel. 
Richfield v. Laria, 138 Ohio St.3d 168, 2014-Ohio-243, 4 N.E.3d 1040, ¶ 8. 
{¶ 10} But even though Sup.R. 44 through 47 provide the sole procedural 
method for obtaining public records from a court, we are not entitled to use those 
procedural rules to enlarge a substantive right.  Allowing the Rules of 
Superintendence to control over the Public Records Act unconstitutionally extends 
the substantive right of inmates to access certain public records beyond the 
boundaries set by the General Assembly.  See, e.g., State v. Slatter, 66 Ohio St.2d 
452, 454, 423 N.E.2d 100 (1981) (“a statute will control a rule on matters of 
substantive law”). 
{¶ 11} This does not mean that the Rules of Superintendence pertaining to 
court records are unconstitutional or that they have no application to this case.  A 
court rule and a state law can coexist unless they are in conflict.  See Fraiberg v. 
Cuyahoga Cty. Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Div., 76 Ohio St.3d 
374, 376, 667 N.E.2d 1189 (1996); see also Ohio Constitution, Section 5(B), 
Article IV.  I find no apparent conflict here.  By its terms, R.C. 149.43(B)(8) applies 
generally to an inmate’s access to public records without excluding those records 
held by courts.  Accordingly, for applicable records, the limits R.C. 149.43(B)(8) 
places on the substantive rights of inmates govern the process for obtaining public 
records under both the Public Records Act and Sup.R. 44 through 47.  Therefore, I 
would hold that when seeking records covered by R.C. 149.43(B)(8), an 
incarcerated person must obtain the release of the sentencing court to establish 
entitlement to records sought through either the Public Records Act or Sup.R. 44 
through 47. 
{¶ 12} While I agree with the majority opinion that Husband employed the 
wrong procedures to obtain records from the court—making his request pursuant 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
 
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to the Public Records Act rather than the Rules of Superintendence—I would 
conclude that that was merely an alternative reason to deny the request.  I would 
affirm the court of appeals’ decision and rationale rather than relying on that 
alternative reasoning, because without the sentencing court’s release under R.C. 
149.43(B)(8), Husband was not entitled to obtain records pursuant to the procedure 
outlined in the Rules of Superintendence. 
_________________ 
Louis Husband, pro se. 
Joseph T. Deters, Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney, and Philip R. 
Cummings, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee. 
_________________