Title: Sisk & Assoc., Inc. v. Commt. to Elect Timothy Grendell

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Sisk & Assoc., Inc. v. Commt. to Elect Timothy Grendell, Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-5591.] 
 
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. 2009-OHIO-5591 
SISK & ASSOCIATES, INC., APPELLEE, v. COMMITTEE TO ELECT  
TIMOTHY GRENDELL ET AL., APPELLANTS, ET AL. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Sisk & Assoc., Inc. v. Commt. to Elect Timothy Grendell,  
Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-5591.] 
Civil procedure — Civ.R. 3(A) — Civ.R.41 — Instruction for a clerk to attempt 
service of a complaint that was filed more than a year prior is a notice 
dismissal of the claims — When a complaint making the same claims has 
been previously dismissed by a plaintiff, an instruction to attempt service 
of a complaint filed more than a year prior is a second notice dismissal, 
resulting in dismissal with prejudice of the claims. 
(No. 2008-1265 — Submitted April 7, 2009 — Decided October 29, 2009.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 07AP-1002,  
2008-Ohio-2342. 
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SYLLABUS OF THE COURT 
When a plaintiff files an instruction for a clerk to attempt service of a complaint 
that was filed more than a year prior, the instruction by operation of law is 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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a notice dismissal of the claims, and if the plaintiff had previously filed a 
notice dismissing a complaint making the same claim, the instruction by 
operation of law is a second notice dismissal, resulting in dismissal with 
prejudice of the claims.  (Goolsby v. Anderson Concrete Corp. (1991), 61 
Ohio St.3d 549, 575 N.E.2d 801, and Olynyk v. Scoles, 114 Ohio St.3d 56, 
2007-Ohio-2878, 868 N.E.2d 254, construed and applied.) 
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PFEIFER, J. 
{¶ 1} The issue in this case is whether the trial court’s dismissal of a 
second complaint constituted a dismissal with or without prejudice.  We conclude 
that it was a dismissal with prejudice. 
Background and Procedural History 
{¶ 2} Appellee, Sisk & Associates, Inc. (“Sisk”), filed a complaint for 
breach of contract against appellant, the Committee to Elect Timothy Grendell 
(“committee”), on September 23, 2004.  Sisk failed to obtain service on the 
committee within one year and voluntarily dismissed the action.  Sisk refiled the 
claim on October 19, 2005, and then filed an amended complaint on February 3, 
2006.  Sisk did not obtain service within one year of October 19, 2005, but 
requested that the clerk serve the committee on March 26, 2007, outside the one-
year time limit found in Civ.R. 3(A).  Based on Sisk’s failure to obtain service 
within one year of the filing of the complaint, the trial court dismissed the second 
action without prejudice. 
{¶ 3} On appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the ruling of the lower 
court.  It reasoned that the trial court had dismissed the action for lack of personal 
jurisdiction over appellants, after Sisk failed to perfect service, and that dismissal 
for lack of personal jurisdiction is always “other than on the merits.”  Civ.R. 
41(B)(4). 
January Term, 2009 
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{¶ 4} We granted the committee’s discretionary appeal.  119 Ohio St.3d 
1502, 2008-Ohio-5467, 895 N.E.2d 565. 
Analysis 
{¶ 5} Civ.R. 3(A) states that “[a] civil action is commenced by filing a 
complaint with the court, if service is obtained within one year from such filing 
upon a named defendant.”  A principal purpose of Civ.R. 3(A) is “to promote the 
prompt and orderly resolution of litigation, as well as eliminating the unnecessary 
clogging of court dockets caused by undue delay.”  Saunders v. Choi (1984), 12 
Ohio St.3d 247, 250, 12 OBR 327, 466 N.E.2d 889.  See Fetterolf v. Hoffmann-
LaRoche, Inc. (1995), 104 Ohio App.3d 272, 277, 661 N.E.2d 811 (construing 
Saunders and determining that “no extension [of time to perfect service] can be 
granted after the one-year limitations period for commencement of an action as 
required by Civ.R. 3(A) has run”). 
{¶ 6} The dismissal of the first complaint was voluntary.  The dismissal 
of the second complaint was involuntary.  Had the second complaint been 
voluntarily dismissed, it would have operated as a dismissal on the merits because 
it would have been the second voluntary dismissal of the same claim.  Civ.R. 
41(A)(1) (a) (voluntary dismissal “is without prejudice, except that a notice of 
dismissal operates as an adjudication upon the merits of any claim that the 
plaintiff has once dismissed in any court”); Olynyk v. Scoles, 114 Ohio St.3d 56, 
2007-Ohio-2878, 868 N.E.2d 254, syllabus.  See Shafer v. Sunsports Surf Co., 
Inc. (10th Dist. No. 06AP-484), 2006-Ohio-6002, ¶ 15.  But the second dismissal 
was not voluntary, it was involuntary, pursuant to Civ.R. 41(B)(1), because Sisk 
failed to comply with Civ.R. 3(A).  Accordingly, Civ.R. 41(B)(3) applies; it 
provides that an involuntary dismissal “operates as an adjudication upon the 
merits unless the court, in its order for dismissal, otherwise specifies.”  The trial 
court specified that the dismissal was without prejudice. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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{¶ 7} Because the trial court involuntarily dismissed the complaint, but 
without prejudice, the dismissal is, according to Civ.R. (B)(3), other than on the 
merits.  But the situation thereby created is clearly incompatible with the purpose 
of Civ.R. 3(A), which is “to promote the prompt and orderly resolution of 
litigation.”  Saunders, 12 Ohio St.3d at 250, 12 OBR 327, 466 N.E.2d 889.  
Furthermore, allowing the dismissal to be without prejudice would grant Sisk a 
better result from an involuntary dismissal than from a voluntary dismissal.  The 
bottom line in this case is that Sisk has utterly failed to comply with the service 
requirement in Civ.R. 3(A).  To allow Sisk to proceed with its case, after twice 
failing to perfect service within a year, would be a perversion of justice. 
{¶ 8} We are persuaded that the just approach is to assume, as we did in 
Goolsby v. Anderson Concrete Corp. (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 549, 551, 575 N.E.2d 
801, that an instruction to the clerk of courts to attempt service outside the one-
year period in Civ. R. 3(A) is “equivalent to a refiling of the complaint.”  Id. at 
syllabus.  The attempt to serve the second complaint more than one year after it 
was filed is equivalent, then, to a refiling of the complaint, which necessarily 
implies that the second complaint had been dismissed by notice, as in Goolsby.  
Unlike the plaintiff in Goolsby, however, Sisk has already dismissed his claim 
once.  The subsequent notice dismissal, even if implied, therefore “operates as an 
adjudication upon the merits.”  Civ.R. 41(A)(1); Olynyk, 114 Ohio St.3d at 59, 
868 N.E.2d 254.  See Shafer, 2006-Ohio-6002, at ¶ 15 (construing Goolsby, in a 
case very similar to this one, and concluding that “a second voluntary dismissal 
(necessary in order to refile) would have resulted in an adjudication upon the 
merits of his claims”). 
{¶ 9} Therefore, we hold that when a plaintiff files an instruction for a 
clerk to attempt service of a complaint that was filed more than a year prior, the 
instruction by operation of law is a notice dismissal of the claims, and if the 
January Term, 2009 
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plaintiff had previously filed a notice dismissing a complaint making the same 
claim, the instruction by operation of law is a second notice dismissal, resulting in 
dismissal with prejudice of the claims.  We reverse the judgment of the court of 
appeals. 
Judgment reversed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., and LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL, and 
LANZINGER, JJ., concur. 
 
CUPP, J., concurs in judgment only. 
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Christensen, Christensen, Donchatz, Kettlewell, & Owens, L.L.P., and 
Timothy J. Owens, for appellee. 
Grendell & Simon Co., L.P.A., and Timothy J. Grendell; and Buckingham, 
Doolittle & Burroughs, L.L.P., John P. Slagter, and Anthony R. Vacanti, for 
appellants. 
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