Title: Yajnik v. Akron Dept. of Health, Hous. Div.

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as Yajnik v. Akron Dept. of Health, Hous. Div., 101 Ohio St.3d 106, 2004-Ohio-357.] 
 
 
YAJNIK ET AL., APPELLEES, v. AKRON DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, HOUSING 
DIVISION, APPELLANT. 
[Cite as Yajnik v. Akron Dept. of Health, Hous. Div., 101 Ohio St.3d 106, 2004-
Ohio-357.] 
Municipal corporations — Zoning — Akron ordinance requires owner to pay 
semiannual inspection fees for all rental properties owned when only one 
property is determined to have a housing code violation — Owners of 50 
rental properties have not satisfied their burden to prove that the law is 
unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt — Court of appeals’ 
judgment reversed and remanded to address owners’ remaining 
constitutional challenges. 
(No. 2002-1488 — Submitted June 4, 2003 — Decided February 11, 2004.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Summit County, No. 20844, 2002-Ohio-
3501. 
___________ 
 
MOYER, C.J. 
{¶1} 
The issue presented in this case is whether Akron Codified 
Ordinances (“A.C.O.”) 150.40(A)(2) as applied to Ashvin and Shobhana Yajnik 
violates the Due Process Clause of the Ohio Constitution. We hold that the 
Yajniks have not satisfied their burden to prove that the law is unconstitutional 
beyond a reasonable doubt. 
I 
{¶2} 
The Yajniks own rental units with approximately 50 different 
addresses in the city of Akron. On September 16, 1997, the Yajniks were 
convicted of violating a misdemeanor provision of the Akron Environmental 
Health Housing Code. The record does not indicate the nature of the violation. As 
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a result of the conviction, the Akron Department of Health required the Yajniks to 
obtain semiannual inspections of all of their rental properties pursuant to A.C.O. 
150.40. 
{¶3} 
On January 14, 2000, the Akron Health Department issued the 
Yajniks an order to comply, which required the mandatory inspection of all of 
their rental properties for up to four years. The health department served the 
Yajniks with notice of a hearing for the purpose of scheduling the semiannual 
inspections and for the payment of the required inspection fees. Relying on the fee 
schedule in A.C.O. 150.40(F), the Yajniks estimated that the total cost for the 
semiannual inspections would be $42,000. 
{¶4} 
The Yajniks appealed to the Housing Appeals Board (“the board”), 
alleging statutory construction issues and violations of various provisions of the 
Ohio and United States Constitutions. After conducting a hearing, the board 
denied the appeal. The Yajniks appealed from the judgment of the board to the 
Summit County Court of Common Pleas, asserting that A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) 
violates the (1) the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Ohio and 
United States Constitutions, (2) the Fourth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution, (3) the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the Ohio and United States 
Constitutions, and (4) the Retroactivity Clause of the Ohio Constitution and the 
Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution. The court of common 
pleas reversed the decision of the board and concluded that the application of 
A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) to the Yajniks violated their right to substantive due process 
under the Ohio Constitution. 
{¶5} 
The city of Akron appealed to the Ninth District Court of Appeals, 
arguing that the Yajniks had not satisfied their burden to prove that A.C.O. 
150.40(A)(2) as applied to them is unconstitutional. In a split decision, the Ninth 
District affirmed the judgment of the trial court and held that application of 
January Term, 2004 
3 
A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) to the Yajniks violated their rights under the Ohio 
Constitution. 
{¶6} 
The cause is now before this court upon the allowance of a 
discretionary appeal. 
II 
{¶7} 
The sole issue in this appeal is whether A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) as 
applied to the Yajniks violates the Due Process Clause in Section 16, Article I of 
the Ohio Constitution. Our analysis of this issue begins with a review of A.C.O. 
Chapter 150. 
A 
{¶8} 
In November 1996, the Akron City Council amended its 
environmental health housing code and declared an emergency because “dwelling 
premises in the City [were] deteriorated due to a lack of maintenance and 
[violations] of the City Health, Safety, and Sanitation Code, Litter Code, Housing 
Code, and Zoning Code * * *.” Preamble, Akron Ordinance No. 769-1996. The 
condition of these premises, the City Council declared, constituted “a threat to 
new development, the housing stock, property values and [to] the public health, 
safety, welfare, and aesthetics.” Id. Concluding that “the majority of these 
dwelling premises in the City that are deteriorated * * * are rental units,” the City 
Council determined that “a more proactive means of Code Enforcement” was 
necessary. Id. 
{¶9} 
Against this backdrop, the city council passed Ordinance No. 769-
1996, codified at Title 15, Chapter 150 of the A.C.O., “establishing minimum 
standards for the maintenance and condition of dwelling premises in the city, 
establishing a mandatory rental unit registration program, establishing a 
mandatory rental unit mandatory inspection program, and directing City 
departments to take action as is necessary to implement the programs.” Id. The 
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Akron City Council implemented the mandatory inspection program in A.C.O. 
150.40(A), which provides: 
{¶10} “(A) The owner or operator of a premises with a rental unit shall 
have the interior and exterior of the premises, its structures and its rental units 
inspected semi-annually, for a minimum of four years, to determine compliance 
with the Health, Safety and Sanitation Code, Litter Code, Housing Code, and 
Zoning Code, under the following circumstances: 
{¶11} “* * * 
{¶12} “(2) If the owner or operator has been convicted of a violation of 
this chapter * * *.” 
{¶13} The Akron City Council thus determined that property owners who 
neglect their rental property — as evinced by a housing-code conviction — are 
subject to semiannual inspections of their rental properties. It is this legislative 
decision, adopted as a more proactive means of enforcement to address the rental 
property emergency in the city, that forms the basis of the instant appeal. 
B 
{¶14} In determining the constitutionality of a legislative act, this court 
must first determine whether the party is challenging the act on its face or as 
applied to a particular set of facts. Belden v. Union Cent. Life Ins. Co. (1944), 143 
Ohio St. 329, 340, 28 O.O. 295, 55 N.E.2d 629. In an “as applied” challenge, the 
party challenging the constitutionality of the statute contends that the “application 
of the statute in the particular context in which he has acted, or in which he 
proposes to act, would be unconstitutional. The practical effect of holding a 
statute unconstitutional ‘as applied’ is to prevent its future application in a similar 
context, but not to render it utterly inoperative.” Ada v. Guam Soc. of 
Obstetricians & Gynecologists (1992), 506 U.S. 1011, 113 S.Ct. 633, 121 L.Ed. 
2d 564 (Scalia, J., dissenting). 
January Term, 2004 
5 
{¶15} The Yajniks assert that A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) is unconstitutional not 
on its face, but as applied to the particular facts in the instant matter. Specifically, 
the Yajniks argue that application of A.C.O. 1540.40(A)(2) to them violates their 
substantive due process rights because there is no reasonable relationship between 
a single conviction for a housing code violation and the mandatory inspection of 
their numerous other rental properties. The trial court concluded, and the court of 
appeals agreed, that “given the number of properties owned by [the Yajniks] and 
the fact that only one property led to a conviction for a substantive violation, * * * 
the mandatory semiannual inspection of all properties owned by them is 
unreasonable and arbitrary.” We disagree. 
{¶16} The ability to invalidate legislation is a power to be exercised only 
with great caution and in the clearest of cases. That power, therefore, is 
circumscribed by the rule that laws are entitled to a strong presumption of 
constitutionality and that a party challenging the constitutionality of a law bears 
the burden of proving that the law is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.  
State ex rel. Dickman v. Defenbacher (1955), 164 Ohio St. 142, 57 O.O. 134, 128 
N.E.2d 59, paragraph one of the syllabus. Furthermore, a municipality has wide 
discretion in exercising its power to legislate for the general welfare of its 
citizens; hence, an enactment comports with due process “ ‘if it bears a real and 
substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare of the 
public and if it is not unreasonable or arbitrary.’ ” Desenco, Inc. v. Akron (1999), 
84 Ohio St.3d 535, 545, 706 N.E.2d 323, quoting Benjamin v. Columbus (1957), 
167 Ohio St. 103, 110, 4 O.O.2d 113, 146 N.E.2d 854. 
{¶17} Applying these principles to the instant case, we conclude that the 
Yajniks have not satisfied their burden to prove that A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) as 
applied is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. This conclusion flows 
from one undisputed fact: The circumstances of the conviction that led to the 
mandatory inspections are not part of the record. The Yajniks therefore urge us to 
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hold that the mandatory inspections at issue violate the Due Process Clause of the 
Ohio Constitution although we do not know the nature of the code violation. Such 
an approach would require us to hypothesize about possible violations and to then 
determine that the resulting inspections violate the Due Process Clause. 
{¶18} Notwithstanding the inherent difficulty in attempting to account for 
all of the possible circumstances that would constitute violations under A.C.O. 
Chapter 150, such an approach is fraught with a more fundamental problem — 
that is, the reasonableness and arbitrariness of a mandatory inspection under 
A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) are inextricably related to the violation that gives rise to that 
inspection. If, for example, an owner or operator violates A.C.O. 150.30(A), 
which requires the registration of all rental units, then the mandatory inspection of 
other-owned units would likely be unreasonable and arbitrary — and thus violate 
the Due Process Clause of the Ohio Constitution — because the inspections 
would not disclose whether other units were also not registered. If, by contrast, an 
owner violates A.C.O. 150.08(I) and/or (J), which provide that “[e]very multiple 
dwelling unit shall be equipped with audible smoke detector devices” and “fire 
extinguishers of a minimum classification,” then the mandatory inspections of 
other-owned units would at least arguably be reasonable and not arbitrary — and 
indeed bear a real and substantial relation to the public health, safety, and general 
welfare — under the Due Process Clause. 
{¶19} Absent evidence of the underlying violation, therefore, this court 
lacks the necessary information to determine whether A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) is 
constitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Ohio Constitution in the 
instant case. Accordingly, the Yajniks have not satisfied their burden to prove that 
the law is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. We therefore reverse the 
judgment of the court of appeals and remand the matter to that court to address 
the Yajniks’ remaining constitutional challenges. 
Judgment reversed 
January Term, 2004 
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and cause remanded. 
RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY and O’CONNOR, JJ., concur. 
PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON and O’DONNELL, JJ., dissent. 
__________________ 
 
O’DONNELL, J., dissenting. 
{¶20} I respectfully dissent because in my view the Yajniks satisfied their 
burden to prove that A.C.O. 150.40(A)(2) as applied to them is unconstitutional. 
{¶21} Regarding the reasonableness requirement of the due process test, 
in Froelich v. Cleveland (1919), 99 Ohio St. 376, 391, 124 N.E. 212, this court 
stated, “It must be remembered that neither the state in the passage of general 
laws, nor the municipality in the passage of local laws, may make any regulations 
which are unreasonable. The means adopted must be suitable to the ends in view, 
* * * and not unduly oppressive upon individuals * * * and must not interfere 
with private rights beyond the necessities of the situation.” 
{¶22} In Wilson v. Cincinnati (1976), 46 Ohio St.2d 138, 142, 75 O.O.2d 
190, 346 N.E.2d 666, for example, we held that a program for a point-of-sale 
housing inspection met the reasonableness standard, although we held it 
unconstitutional on other grounds.  In Rental Property Owners Assn. of Kent Cty. 
v. Grand Rapids (1997), 455 Mich. 246, 566 N.W.2d 514, the Michigan Supreme 
Court considered an ordinance that authorized Grand Rapids to declare rental 
property a public nuisance when used repeatedly for illegal drugs or prostitution 
and to padlock it for one year.  Evaluating the reasonableness of the ordinance, 
the court held that it was neither unfair nor unjust for the city to impose the 
burden of abating the nuisances upon the individual owners and concluded that 
the ordinance constituted a valid exercise of the police power.  Id. at 272, 566 
N.W.2d 514. 
{¶23} Under Akron’s scheme of mandatory inspections, the Yajniks face 
inspections twice a year for a period of four years for all 50 properties they own 
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and must pay more than $40,000 in inspection fees, even though the city 
convicted them of violating the housing code regarding only one property.  I 
recognize that the Yajniks bear the burden to prove the law’s unconstitutionality; 
however, I do not share the majority’s view that the Yajniks’ failure to identify 
the nature of the code violation is fatal to their claim.  The record here reveals that 
their 50 properties are scattered throughout the city of Akron.  Other than 
common ownership, these properties share no characteristics demonstrating the 
likelihood of any existing or future code violations.  Unlike in Wilson or Rental 
Property Owners, supra, where the respective city councils enacted legislation to 
meet specific objectives, Akron’s inspection scheme transcends the city’s need to 
rectify noncompliance found at the Yajniks’ one offending property.  In my view, 
the 400 inspections foisted upon the Yajniks for their single conviction of one 
code violation at one property unreasonably interfere with their property rights 
“beyond the necessities of the situation.”  See Froelich.  Accordingly, I would 
hold that this ordinance, as applied to the Yajniks, fails to satisfy the 
reasonableness requirement under the due process test and therefore is not a valid 
exercise of Akron’s police power. 
 
PFEIFER and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur in foregoing dissenting 
opinion. 
__________________ 
 
Dean Konstand, for appellees. 
 
Max Rothal, Akron Law Director, and John R. York, Assistant Law 
Director, for appellant. 
 
Byron & Byron, Barry M. Byron and Stephen L. Byron; and John 
Gotherman, urging reversal for amicus curiae the Ohio Municipal League.