Title: State ex rel. Varnau v. Wenninger

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. Varnau v. Wenninger, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-224.] 
 
 
 
 
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. 2012-OHIO-224 
THE STATE EX REL. VARNAU, APPELLANT AND CROSS-APPELLEE, v. 
WENNINGER, SHERIFF, APPELLEE AND CROSS-APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Varnau v. Wenninger,  
Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-224.] 
Quo warranto to oust county sheriff—Court of appeals’ judgment denying writ 
and denying attorney fees to sheriff affirmed. 
(No. 2011-1414—Submitted January 18, 2012—Decided January 26, 2012.) 
APPEAL and CROSS-APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Brown County, 
No. CA2009-02-010, 2011-Ohio-3904. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is an appeal and cross-appeal from a judgment entered, upon 
remand, by the court of appeals denying a writ of quo warranto to oust appellee 
and cross-appellant, Dwayne Wenninger, from the office of sheriff of Brown 
County and to order that appellant and cross-appellee, Dennis J. Varnau, be 
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entitled to the office.  Because the court of appeals did not err in denying the writ 
or in denying an award of attorney fees to Wenninger, we affirm. 
Facts 
{¶ 2} Wenninger has been the Brown County sheriff since January 2001, 
having won elections in 2000, 2004, and 2008.  The board of elections certified 
that he met the applicable qualifications to be a sheriff’s candidate for each of the 
elections. 
{¶ 3} In 2004, a protest was lodged against Wenninger’s candidacy for 
sheriff, but it was withdrawn. 
{¶ 4} In 2008, Varnau, an independent candidate for sheriff, filed a 
protest against Wenninger’s candidacy for sheriff.  The board of elections denied 
the protest because, among other reasons, it was not “filed by a member of the 
appropriate party.” 
{¶ 5} Varnau then sought a writ of mandamus to compel the board of 
elections to accept as valid the protest he had filed against Wenninger’s 
candidacy.  The Brown County Court of Common Pleas dismissed the mandamus 
action because, among other reasons, “the extraordinary remedy of mandamus is 
not appropriate in that there is a legal remedy at law through a quo warranto 
action” and Varnau’s protest was not “filed by a ‘qualified elector who is a 
member of the same political party as the candidate and who is eligible to vote at 
the primary election for the candidate whose declaration of candidacy the elector 
objects to,’ pursuant to R.C. 3513.05.”  The court of appeals affirmed the 
dismissal, finding: “Should Wenninger be elected and take office, [Varnau] has 
other legal remedies.” 
{¶ 6} In February 2009, following the election victory by Wenninger, 
Varnau filed a complaint in the court of appeals for a writ of quo warranto to oust 
Wenninger from the office of sheriff and to place Varnau in that office. Varnau 
claimed that because he was the only lawful sheriff’s candidate at the November 
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2008 election, he is entitled to the office.  Wenninger moved to dismiss the 
complaint and attached his affidavit to the motion.  The court of appeals 
converted the motion for dismissal to a motion for summary judgment, Varnau 
moved for summary judgment, and the parties submitted evidence. 
{¶ 7} On August 16, 2010, the court of appeals granted Wenninger’s 
motion for summary judgment and denied the writ.  State ex rel. Varnau v. 
Wenninger, Brown App. No. CA2009-02-010, 2010-Ohio-3813, 2010 WL 
3212016. 
{¶ 8} On appeal, we held that the court of appeals erred in holding that 
the previous administrative determinations of the board of elections precluded the 
quo warranto action, and we remanded the cause to the court of appeals for 
further proceedings.  State ex rel. Varnau v. Wenninger, 128 Ohio St.3d 361, 
2011-Ohio-759, 944 N.E.2d 663. 
{¶ 9} On remand, the court of appeals denied Varnau’s motion for 
summary judgment, granted Wenninger’s motion for summary judgment, and 
denied the writ of quo warranto.  The court of appeals taxed the costs of the 
proceedings to Varnau, but it did not award Wenninger attorney fees as part of the 
costs. 
{¶ 10} This cause is now before the court upon Varnau’s appeal and 
Wenninger’s cross-appeal. 
Legal Analysis 
Varnau’s Appeal:  Quo Warranto 
{¶ 11} In his appeal as of right, Varnau asserts that the court of appeals 
erred in denying the writ of quo warranto. 
{¶ 12} “To be entitled to the writ of quo warranto, the relator must 
establish that the office is being unlawfully held and exercised by respondent and 
that relator is entitled to the office.”  State ex rel. Zeigler v. Zumbar, 129 Ohio 
St.3d 240, 2011-Ohio-2939, 951 N.E.2d 405, ¶ 23.  Moreover, “[i]f a relator in a 
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quo warranto proceeding fails to establish entitlement to the office, judgment may 
still be rendered on the issue of whether respondent lawfully holds the disputed 
office.”  State ex rel. Myers v. Brown (2000), 87 Ohio St.3d 545, 547, 721 N.E.2d 
1053. 
{¶ 13} Varnau asserts that Wenninger is not entitled to the office of 
sheriff, because when he was elected in 2000 and took office for his first four-
year term in January 2001, Wenninger did not meet the supervisory-experience 
requirement or the postsecondary-education requirement of R.C. 311.01(B)(9), 
and this deficiency resulted in Wenninger’s having a break in service that 
invalidated his peace-officer certificate of training and led to Wenninger’s not 
meeting the qualifications for sheriff under R.C. 311.01(B)(8) starting in January 
2005. 
{¶ 14} We disagree.  As the court of appeals correctly concluded, “any 
challenge to Wenninger’s qualifications to run for or hold the office of sheriff for 
the 2000 and 2004 election terms has been rendered moot as those office terms 
have already expired” and “Varnau cannot seek to invalidate Wenninger’s present 
term of office based on an alleged prior disqualification from an expired term of 
office.”  State ex rel. Varnau v. Wenninger, Brown App. No. CA 2009-02-010, 
2011-Ohio-3904, at ¶ 38, 44.  Wenninger raised defenses of mootness and laches 
in his motion for summary judgment. 
{¶ 15} A quo warranto claim must be timely directed to challenge a 
current term of office rather than an expired one.  See Zeigler, 129 Ohio St.3d 
240, 2011-Ohio-2939, 951 N.E.2d 405, ¶ 14; State ex rel. Devine v. Baxter 
(1959), 168 Ohio St. 559, 7 O.O.2d 431, 156 N.E.2d 746 (appeal from judgment 
denying writ of quo warranto to remove members of board of trustees of a 
cemetery association dismissed as moot when one-year terms to which members 
were elected had expired and those members who continued to hold office as 
trustees did so by authority of their reelection to new terms of office); State ex rel. 
January Term, 2012 
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Paluf v. Feneli (1995), 100 Ohio App.3d 461, 654 N.E.2d 360 (appointee’s quo 
warranto claim  to the office of city law director was rendered moot by the 
expiration of the law director’s term of office). 
{¶ 16} Similarly, in State ex rel. Newell v. Jackson, 118 Ohio St.3d 138, 
2008-Ohio-1965, 886 N.E.2d 846, ¶ 11, we held that “[t]o be entitled to a writ of 
quo warranto to oust a good-faith appointee, a relator must take affirmative action 
by either filing a quo warranto action or an injunction challenging the 
appointment before the appointee completes the probationary period and becomes 
a permanent employee.”  Varnau could have raised his claims by filing an action 
for quo warranto during Wenninger’s first four-year term of office beginning in 
January 2001 instead of waiting until Wenninger had already begun his third four-
year term of office beginning in January 2009 to raise his belated claim. 
{¶ 17} This result comports with our consistent requirement in election-
related cases that relators “act with the utmost diligence.”  Blankenship v. 
Blackwell, 103 Ohio St.3d 567, 2004-Ohio-5596, 817 N.E.2d 382, ¶ 19.  “If 
relators in election cases do not exercise the utmost diligence, laches may bar an 
action for extraordinary relief.”  State ex rel. Craig v. Scioto Cty. Bd. of Elections, 
117 Ohio St.3d 158, 2008-Ohio-706, 882 N.E.2d 435, ¶ 11.  We have previously 
held that extraordinary-writ actions challenging a sheriff candidate’s R.C. 
311.01(B)(9) qualification may be barred by laches.  See Campaign to Elect Larry 
Carver Sheriff v. Campaign to Elect Anthony Stankiewicz Sheriff, 101 Ohio St.3d 
256, 2004-Ohio-812, 804 N.E.2d 419; State ex rel. Landis v. Morrow Cty. Bd. of 
Elections (2000), 88 Ohio St.3d 187, 724 N.E.2d 775. 
{¶ 18} Although Varnau’s status as a nonpartisan may have precluded 
him from instituting a timely protest against Wenninger’s candidacy in the 
November 2000 sheriff’s race, it did not preclude him from instituting a timely 
quo warranto action after Wenninger took office in January 2001 to oust him from 
office.  Varnau did not do so, and he cannot belatedly raise his claim after the first 
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term has expired and Wenninger has subsequently been elected to second and 
third four-year terms as sheriff. 
{¶ 19} As the court of appeals observed, “[t]he focus must remain on 
Wenninger’s eligibility to run for and hold the office of sheriff for the present 
term, not for the previous terms that have already expired.”  (Emphasis sic.)  
Varnau, 2011-Ohio-3904, at ¶ 44.  For purposes of a quo warranto claim, “ ‘[h]is 
office’ means his present office under his present commission, and not an old 
expired term in the same office under a former election or appointment.  He could 
not be ousted from such former term of office, because the term has expired, and 
he is not now in office under that term, and is not now an officer under that term.”  
State ex rel. Wilmot v. Buckley (1899), 60 Ohio St. 273, 299-300, 54 N.E. 272, 
construing the predecessor to R.C. 2733.35, which sets forth the statute of 
limitations for bringing quo warranto actions; see also State ex rel. Fogle v. 
Carlisle, 99 Ohio St.3d 46, 2003-Ohio-2460, 788 N.E.2d 1060, ¶ 10 (“Fogle’s 
quo warranto claim is barred by R.C. 2733.35 because he brought his action more 
than three years after his cause of action arose”). 
{¶ 20} The cases that Varnau cites are inapposite.  For example, in State 
ex rel. Huron Cty. Prosecutor v. Westerhold (1995), 72 Ohio St.3d 392, 650 
N.E.2d 463, the quo warranto action was instituted by the prosecuting attorney to 
challenge the appointment of a person to a veterans service commission only a 
month and a half after the appointment.  And in Zeigler, 129 Ohio St.3d 240, 
2011-Ohio-2939, 951 N.E.2d 405, ¶ 15, the relator challenged his removal from 
office before he was removed and filed his quo warranto action only 15 days after 
his ouster.  No comparable prompt action was taken by Varnau to challenge 
Wenninger’s qualifications to be a candidate for sheriff in November 2000 or to 
thereafter hold office. 
{¶ 21} Therefore, Varnau has not established that Sheriff Wenninger lacks 
the qualifications under R.C. 311.01(B) to hold the office of sheriff for his third 
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four-year term, and the court of appeals properly denied the writ.  By so holding, 
it is unnecessary to address Varnau’s remaining contentions contesting the court 
of appeals’ evidentiary rulings, because even if these contentions had merit, he 
would not be entitled to the requested extraordinary relief in quo warranto. 
Cross-Appeal:  Attorney Fees 
{¶ 22} In his cross-appeal, Wenninger asserts that the court of appeals 
erred in not awarding him attorney fees when he prevailed on Varnau’s quo 
warranto claim.  During the proceedings in the court of appeals, Wenninger 
requested that Varnau pay his attorney fees as part of the costs of the case. 
{¶ 23} “Ohio has long adhered to the ‘American rule’ with respect to 
recovery of attorney fees:  a prevailing party in a civil action may not recover 
attorney fees as part of the costs of litigation.”  Wilborn v. Bank One Corp., 121 
Ohio St.3d 546, 2009-Ohio-306, 906 N.E.2d 396, ¶ 7.  “An exception to this 
general rule is that attorney fees may be awarded to a prevailing party when a 
statute specifically authorizes it.”  State ex rel. Doe v. Smith, 123 Ohio St.3d 44, 
2009-Ohio-4149, 914 N.E.2d 159, ¶ 18. 
{¶ 24} Wenninger claims that R.C. 309.13 provides statutory support for 
awarding him attorney fees in this case.  That statute provides for an award of 
attorney fees as part of costs if a prosecuting attorney failed to institute a civil 
action for the protection of public funds after a taxpayer made a written request 
that he do so and the taxpayer, upon securing the costs, brought such an action 
and prevailed: 
{¶ 25} “If the prosecuting attorney fails, upon the written request of a 
taxpayer of the county, to make the application or institute the civil action 
contemplated in section 309.12 of the Revised Code, the taxpayer may make such 
application or institute such civil action in the name of the state, or, in any case 
wherein the prosecuting attorney is authorized to make such application, such 
taxpayer may bring any suit or institute any such proceedings against any county 
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officer or person who holds or has held a county office, for misconduct in office 
or neglect of his duty, to recover money illegally drawn or illegally withheld from 
the county treasury, and to recover damages resulting from the execution of such 
illegal contract. 
{¶ 26} “If such prosecuting attorney fails upon the written request of a 
taxpayer of the county, to bring such suit or institute such proceedings, or if for 
any reason the prosecuting attorney cannot bring such action, or if he has received 
and unlawfully withheld moneys belonging to the county, or has received or 
drawn public moneys out of the county treasury which he is not lawfully entitled 
to demand and receive, a taxpayer, upon securing the costs, may bring such suit or 
institute such proceedings, in the name of the state.  Such action shall be for the 
benefit of the county, as if brought by the prosecuting attorney. 
{¶ 27} “If the court hearing such case is satisfied that such taxpayer is 
entitled to the relief prayed for in his petition, and judgment is ordered in his 
favor, he shall be allowed his costs, including a reasonable compensation to his 
attorney.” 
{¶ 28} Wenninger is not entitled to an award of attorney fees under R.C. 
309.13,  because he never demanded that the prosecuting attorney institute a civil 
action to protect public funds pursuant to R.C. 309.12 and he never instituted any 
such action.  In fact, Wenninger did not institute any action at all.  He simply 
responded to the quo warranto suit instituted by Varnau. 
{¶ 29} Therefore, the court of appeals did not err in not awarding him 
attorney fees. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 30} Based on the foregoing, the court of appeals did not err in denying 
the writ of quo warranto or in not including Wenninger’s attorney fees as part of 
the costs of the case that Varnau was ordered to pay.  Therefore, we affirm the 
judgment of the court of appeals.  We also deny Varnau’s motion for oral 
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argument because he specifies no reasons for it, and the parties’ briefs are 
sufficient to resolve this appeal.  See State ex rel. Lorain v. Stewart, 119 Ohio 
St.3d 222, 2008-Ohio-4062, 893 N.E.2d 184, ¶ 18-19. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Thomas G. Eagle Co., L.P.A., and Thomas G. Eagle, for appellant and 
cross-appellee. 
 
Gary A. Rosenhoffer, L.L.C., and Gary A. Rosenhoffer; and Patrick L. 
Gregory, for appellee and cross-appellant. 
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