Title: State ex rel. Dehler v. Kelly

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. Dehler v. Kelly, Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-5724.] 
 
 
 
 
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. 2010-OHIO-5724 
THE STATE EX REL. DEHLER, APPELLANT, v. KELLY, WARDEN, ET AL., 
APPELLEES. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Dehler v. Kelly,  
Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-5724.] 
Public records — R.C. 149.43(C) — Request by prisoner for statutory damages 
properly denied. 
(No. 2010-1229 — Submitted October 13, 2010 — Decided December 1, 2010.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Trumbull County, 
No. 2009-T-0084, 2010-Ohio-3053. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals denying an award 
of statutory damages to appellant, inmate Lambert Dehler, in a public-records 
mandamus case for the following reasons. 
{¶ 2} First, Dehler refused to submit payment for the cost of the 
requested copies of public records.  “R.C. 149.43 does not require a public-
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records custodian to provide copies of records free of charge; instead, the Public 
Records Act requires only that copies of public records be made available at 
cost.”  State ex rel. Call v. Fragale, 104 Ohio St.3d 276, 2004-Ohio-6589, 819 
N.E.2d 294, ¶ 6.  Even though the court of appeals did not rely on this ground to 
deny Dehler’s request for statutory damages, “ ‘[w]e will not reverse a correct 
judgment simply because some or all of a lower court’s reasons are erroneous.’ ”  
State ex rel. Galloway v. Cook, 126 Ohio St.3d 332, 2010-Ohio-3780, 933 N.E.2d 
807, ¶ 4, quoting State ex rel. Swain v. Bartleson, 123 Ohio St.3d 125, 2009-
Ohio-4690, 914 N.E.2d 403, ¶ 1. 
{¶ 3} Moreover, the prison officials established that permitting Dehler to 
inspect the requested records might have unreasonably interfered with the 
discharge of their duties.  See State ex rel. Dehler v. Spatny, __ Ohio St.3d __, 
2010-Ohio-5711, ___ N.E.2d ___, ¶ 5, citing State ex rel. Natl. Broadcasting Co., 
Inc v. Cleveland (1988), 38 Ohio St.3d 79, 81, 526 N.E.2d 786, and Briscoe v. 
Ohio Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., Franklin App. No. 02AP-1109, 2003-Ohio-3533, ¶ 
16 (“With respect to penal institutions, prison administrators must be accorded 
deference in adopting * * * policies and practices to preserve internal order and to 
maintain institutional security”). 
{¶ 4} Finally, notwithstanding Dehler’s contentions to the contrary, R.C. 
149.43(C)(1) does not permit stacking of statutory damages based on what is 
essentially the same records request.  No windfall is conferred by the statute.  See 
R.C. 149.43(C)(1) ( an “award of statutory damages should not be construed as a 
penalty, but as compensation for injury arising from lost use of the requested 
information”). 
{¶ 5} Therefore, Dehler failed to establish his entitlement to an award of 
statutory damages in his public-records mandamus case, and we affirm the 
judgment denying the award. 
Judgment affirmed. 
January Term, 2010 
3 
 
 
PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, and 
CUPP, JJ., concur. 
 
BROWN, C.J., dissents. 
__________________ 
 
BROWN, C.J., dissenting. 
{¶ 6} I respectfully dissent from the judgment affirming the denial of an 
award of statutory damages to appellant, inmate Lambert Dehler, in his public-
records mandamus case. 
{¶ 7} In this appeal, Dehler asserts that the court of appeals erred in 
refusing to award him statutory damages.  The court of appeals granted a writ of 
mandamus to compel appellees to provide access to the requested prison library 
records, but it denied Dehler’s request for statutory damages because unrelated 
records requests that were the subject of a separate mandamus action by Dehler 
had been held by the court to lack merit. 
{¶ 8} For the following reasons, the court of appeals erred in refusing to 
award Dehler $1,000 in statutory damages in accordance with R.C. 149.43(C)(1). 
{¶ 9} First, the court of appeals granted a writ of mandamus to compel 
appellees to immediately satisfy Dehler’s request for prison library records.  As 
the court of appeals itself determined, Dehler “submitted a proper written request 
for public records,” appellees “failed to perform their legal duties under R.C. 
149.43(B) to provide access to those records,” and appellees’ “improper refusal to 
satisfy the ‘library’ request continued longer than a period of ten days.”  2010-
Ohio-3053, ¶ 43.  Appellees did not appeal from the court of appeals’ judgment 
granting the writ.  Thus, we cannot consider their claims insofar as they suggest 
that Dehler was not entitled to the requested records because, inter alia, Dehler 
did not proffer prepayment for copies.  See State ex rel. Worrell v. Ohio Police & 
Fire Pension Fund, 112 Ohio St.3d 116, 2006-Ohio-6513, 858 N.E.2d 380, ¶ 9, 
fn. 1 (“Appellees did not appeal the court’s issuance of a limited writ, so we do 
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not consider the propriety of the court of appeals’ holding that the board had a 
duty to issue a decision stating the basis for its denial”).  Instead, in the absence of 
a timely cross-appeal by appellees from the granting of the writ, we must 
necessarily presume the propriety of the issuance of the writ in our determination 
of whether the court of appeals erred in denying Dehler’s request for statutory 
damages. 
{¶ 10} Second, “R.C. 149.43(C)(1) provides for statutory damages of 
$100 for each business day during which the public office failed to comply with 
the public-records law, up to a maximum of $1,000,” and because more than ten 
business days have elapsed from the date Dehler filed this mandamus action and 
he still has not been provided access to the requested records, the $1,000 
maximum award is applicable.  State ex rel. Doe v. Smith, 123 Ohio St.3d 44, 
2009-Ohio-4149, 914 N.E.2d 159, ¶ 45. 
{¶ 11} Third, nothing in R.C. 149.43(C)(1) authorizes a court to deny or 
reduce an award of statutory damages based on the court of appeals’ stated basis 
of a lack of merit for a different public-records request that is the subject of a 
separate public-records mandamus case instituted by the same relator.  Rather, the 
focus for denying or reducing an otherwise mandatory award of statutory 
damages to a prevailing party in a public-records mandamus case is on the 
conduct of the public-records custodians that constitutes a failure to comply with 
R.C. 149.43(B) in that case and not in a separate public-records mandamus case.  
R.C. 149.43(C)(1)(a) and (b).  The court of appeals thus erred in denying Dehler’s 
request for statutory damages based on the purported impropriety of his records 
request in State ex rel. Dehler v. Spatny, 11th Dist. No. 2009-T-0075, 2010-Ohio-
3052, a separate mandamus case. 
{¶ 12} Fourth, the court of appeals also erred in relying on the supposed 
overbreadth of Dehler’s records request in Spatny because, as I note in my 
separate opinion in Dehler’s appeal from the court of appeals’ judgment in that 
January Term, 2010 
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case, his request for prison quartermaster records at TCI was not overbroad.  State 
ex rel. Dehler v. Spatny, __ Ohio St.3d __, 2010-Ohio-5711, __ N.E.2d __ 
(Brown, C.J., dissenting). 
{¶ 13} Finally, this interpretation of R.C. 149.43(C)(1) is supported by its 
plain language and our duties to “construe the Public Records Act liberally in 
favor of broad access and resolve any doubt in favor of disclosure of public 
records.”  State ex rel. Rocker v. Guernsey Cty. Sheriff’s Office, 126 Ohio St.3d 
224, 2010-Ohio-3288, 932 N.E.2d 327, ¶ 6. 
{¶ 14} Therefore, because the court of appeals erred in not awarding 
Dehler $1,000 in statutory damages, reversal of the judgment is required.  Thus, I 
dissent from the judgment affirming the court of appeals’ denial of statutory 
damages. 
__________________ 
 
Lambert Dehler, pro se. 
 
Richard Cordray, Attorney General, and Ashley D. Rutherford, Assistant 
Attorney General, for appellees. 
______________________