Title: State ex rel. McDougald v. Greene

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. McDougald v. Greene, Slip Opinion No. 2019-Ohio-3309.] 
 
 
 
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-3309 
[THE STATE EX REL.] MCDOUGALD v. GREENE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. McDougald v. Greene, Slip Opinion No.  
2019-Ohio-3309.] 
Mandamus—Public-records law—Writ will issue when a request is made for a 
public record—Peremptory writ granted in part. 
(No. 2019-0562—Submitted June 11, 2019—Decided August 20, 2019.) 
IN MANDAMUS. 
________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Relator, Jerone McDougald, filed this original action in mandamus 
against respondent, Larry Greene, the public-records custodian for the Southern 
Ohio Correctional Facility, seeking to compel responses to a request for public 
records.  As explained below, we hereby grant in part and deny in part 
McDougald’s request for a peremptory writ of mandamus, and we deny 
McDougald’s motion for leave to supplement his complaint. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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{¶ 2} When McDougald filed the complaint for a writ of mandamus, he was 
an inmate at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.  On or about March 3, 2019, 
he submitted a public-records request to Greene, seeking (1) the legal-mail log for 
February 27, 2019, and (2) a copy of an envelope containing legal mail from the 
United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio from that same date.  
Greene responded to the request, but did not produce any documents. 
{¶ 3} McDougald commenced this action for a writ of mandamus on April 
23, 2019, and Greene filed a timely answer.  Thereafter, McDougald filed an 
unopposed motion for leave asking to supplement his mandamus complaint with 
additional facts. 
{¶ 4} As a preliminary matter, we deny the motion for leave to submit 
additional facts because that motion does not conform to any practice recognized 
by the Rules of Practice of the Supreme Court of Ohio or the Ohio Rules of Civil 
Procedure.  McDougald has not sought leave to amend his complaint.  Nor has he 
filed any evidence in support of the alleged additional facts, for which he would not 
need leave to do so had he properly briefed the case on the merits.  See S.Ct.Prac.R. 
12.06.  We therefore deny the motion. 
{¶ 5} As to the merits of his claim, we note that Ohio’s Public Records Act, 
R.C. 149.43, “is construed liberally in favor of broad access, and any doubt is 
resolved in favor of disclosure of public records.”  State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer 
v. Hamilton Cty., 75 Ohio St.3d 374, 376, 662 N.E.2d 334 (1996).  In his answer, 
Greene has not disputed that if the institution maintained a log of incoming mail, 
that log would qualify as a public record under the act.  We therefore grant a 
peremptory writ of mandamus, ordering Greene to provide McDougald copies of 
the requested pages of the legal-mail log, if they exist. 
{¶ 6} As for McDougald’s demand for a copy of the envelope from the 
United States District Court for the Southern District, both Greene’s initial response 
to McDougald and his answer in this litigation make clear that the institution does 
January Term, 2019 
 
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not maintain the original envelopes enclosing incoming mail.  Rather, it provides 
the inmate with a copy of the envelope and discards the original.  Thus, Greene has 
no responsive documents to this request, and we deny the writ on that basis. 
Peremptory writ granted in part 
and denied in part. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, and 
STEWART, JJ. 
 
KENNEDY, J., concurs in judgment only. 
_________________ 
Jerone McDougald, pro se. 
Dave Yost, Attorney General, and Jared S. Yee, Assistant Attorney General, 
for appellee. 
_________________