Title: State ex rel. Waiters v. Szabo

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. Waiters v. Szabo, Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-3088.] 
 
 
 
 
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. 2011-OHIO-3088 
THE STATE EX REL. WAITERS, APPELLANT, v. 
SZABO, COMMR., ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Waiters v. Szabo,  
Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-3088.] 
Mandamus — Discharged city employee sought mandamus to compel her 
reinstatement with back pay and an award of attorney fees — Employee’s 
claim for reinstatement was mooted when city reinstated her — Employee 
failed to prove entitlement to back pay or attorney fees — Court of 
appeals’ decision affirmed. 
(No. 2010-2067 — Submitted June 20, 2011 — Decided June 29, 2011.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, 
No. 94599, 2010-Ohio-5249. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from a judgment denying the claim of a 
terminated public employee for a writ of mandamus to compel her reinstatement 
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to her former job with back pay and an award of attorney fees.  Because the 
employee has been reinstated to her former job and because she failed to establish 
her entitlement to back pay or an award of attorney fees, we affirm. 
Facts 
{¶ 2} Appellant, Cheryl D. Waiters, is employed by the city of Cleveland 
as an electrician assigned to Cleveland Hopkins Airport.  During her employment 
with the city, Waiters has been a member of the International Brotherhood of 
Electrical Workers, Local 38 (“union”), which has a collective-bargaining 
agreement with the city of Cleveland. 
{¶ 3} In June 2007, the city discharged Waiters from employment.  The 
union filed a grievance on behalf of Waiters pursuant to the procedure set forth in 
the collective-bargaining agreement, and after the city denied the grievance, the 
union demanded arbitration.  In March 2008, following a hearing, an arbitrator 
found that the city had discharged her from employment without just cause and 
ordered that she be “reinstated to employment in her former position, status, 
classification and shift with full seniority and continuous service.”  The arbitrator 
ruled that reinstatement would be subject to any ordinary and customary fitness-
for-duty examination, that back pay would be awarded if Waiters could show that 
she had made reasonable efforts to mitigate her damages by seeking other 
employment, and that the back-pay award would be reduced by the amount 
Waiters had earned. 
{¶ 4} After a subsequent proceeding to resolve disputes concerning the 
calculation of a remedy, the arbitrator ruled that Waiters was not entitled to back 
pay or benefits for the period from her discharge through June 5, 2008, that the 
city was not prevented by the collective-bargaining agreement from requesting a 
fitness-for-duty examination of Waiters, and that it was up to the civil service 
commission to determine whether to grant any request by the city for the 
examination.  The arbitrator noted that Waiters was “entitled to be made whole 
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for any wages and benefits lost from the date of the hearing in the remedy phase, 
subject to further issues relative to any claimed failure to mitigate damages after 
June 5, 2008.” 
{¶ 5} The city filed a motion in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common 
Pleas to vacate the arbitration award ordering Waiters’s reinstatement to her job 
as an electrician at the airport, and the court denied the motion.  On appeal, the 
court of appeals affirmed the judgment denying the city’s motion to vacate on 
November 25, 2009.  Cleveland v. Internatl. Bhd. of Elec. Workers Local 38, 
Cuyahoga App. No. 92982, 2009-Ohio-6223.  The city did not appeal the court of 
appeals’ judgment. 
{¶ 6} After some time passed from the court of appeals’ mandate, the 
union threatened the city that it would file a motion in the common pleas court for 
it to show cause why it should not be held in contempt for failing to either 
reinstate Waiters to her former position or petition the civil service commission to 
permit a fitness-for-duty examination.  The city subsequently scheduled physical 
and psychological examinations for Waiters, and she passed both exams by April 
2010.  City officials signed paperwork to begin the process of Waiters’s 
reinstatement to her former job, and a remedy hearing was scheduled before the 
arbitrator to determine the amount of back pay owed to her. 
{¶ 7} In January 2010, Waiters filed a complaint in the court of appeals 
for a writ of mandamus to compel her reinstatement to her former position with 
back pay and an award of attorney fees.  Waiters named Cleveland Hopkins 
Airport Commissioner Fred S. Szabo, Cleveland Department of Port Control 
Director Ricky D. Smith, Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson, Cleveland 
Department of Finance Director Sharon A. Dumas, the city, and the union as 
respondents.  The parties filed dispositive motions and evidence.  After the court 
of appeals requested an update of the status of Waiters’s claims, Waiters and the 
union notified the court that the city had reinstated her to her former job on June 
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28, 2010, following the union’s filing of a motion in the common pleas court for 
an order directing the city to show cause why it should not be held in contempt for 
failing to reinstate her. 
{¶ 8} In October 2010, the court of appeals denied the writ.  The court 
concluded that Waiters’s claim for reinstatement was moot and that she had failed 
to establish her entitlement to back pay or attorney fees. 
{¶ 9} This cause is now before this court upon Waiters’s appeal as of 
right. 
Analysis 
{¶ 10} Waiters asserts that the court of appeals erred in determining that 
she is not entitled to the requested extraordinary relief in mandamus.  To be 
entitled to the writ, Waiters had to establish that she was entitled to reinstatement 
to her former position as an airport electrician with the city, back pay, and 
attorney fees, a corresponding clear legal duty on the part of the municipal 
respondents to provide those things, and the lack of an adequate remedy in the 
ordinary course of law.  See State ex rel. Carnail v. McCormick, 126 Ohio St.3d 
124, 2010-Ohio-2671, 931 N.E.2d 110, ¶ 7. 
{¶ 11} For the reasons that follow, Waiters’s assertion is incorrect. 
{¶ 12} First, the court of appeals correctly held that Waiters’s 
reinstatement claim was rendered moot when she was reinstated on July 28, 2010, 
to her job as an airport electrician.  “Mandamus will not compel the performance 
of an act that has already been performed.”  State ex rel. Dehler v. Kelly, 123 
Ohio St.3d 297, 2009-Ohio-5259, 915 N.E.2d 1223, ¶ 1. 
{¶ 13} Second, as a bargaining-unit employee who was represented by the 
union in the grievance and arbitration process, Waiters was relegated to the 
arbitration proceeding in which the dispute concerning the amount of back pay 
she would be entitled to was being decided.  R.C. 4117.10(A) (“An agreement 
between a public employer and an exclusive representative entered into pursuant 
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to this chapter governs the wages, hours, and terms and conditions of public 
employment covered by the agreement.  If the agreement provides for a final and 
binding arbitration of grievances, public employers, employees, and employee 
organizations are subject solely to that grievance procedure * * *”).1  In fact, 
Waiters received the benefit of the union’s representation in contesting the city’s 
termination of her and obtaining the arbitration award ordering her reinstatement. 
{¶ 14} Third, even if this were an appropriate mandamus case in which a 
wrongly discharged public employee could obtain reinstatement and back pay and 
related benefits, an award of back pay can be recovered only if the amount 
recoverable is established by the employee with certainty.  Monaghan v. Richley 
(1972), 32 Ohio St.2d 190, 61 O.O.2d 425, 291 N.E.2d 462, syllabus; State ex rel. 
Stacy v. Batavia Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 105 Ohio St.3d 476, 2005-Ohio-
2974, 829 N.E.2d 298, ¶ 28.  Waiters submitted no evidence concerning any 
particular amount of back pay to which she claimed entitlement. 
{¶ 15} Finally, the court of appeals did not err in denying Waiters’s 
request for attorney fees.  She did not prevail in the mandamus case, no statute or 
contract provided for the recovery of attorney fees, and she did not establish that 
any of the respondents had exhibited bad faith.  See, generally, Wilborn v. Bank 
One Corp., 121 Ohio St.3d 546, 2009-Ohio-306, 906 N.E.2d 396, ¶ 7 (“Attorney 
fees may be awarded when a statute or an enforceable contract specifically 
provides for the losing party to pay the prevailing party’s attorney fees, or when 
the prevailing party demonstrates bad faith on the part of the unsuccessful 
litigant” [citations omitted]). 
{¶ 16} Therefore, the court of appeals properly denied Waiters’s request 
for extraordinary relief in mandamus to compel her reinstatement with back pay 
                                          
 
1 The discharge, grievance, and arbitration proceeding all commenced before the effective date of 
2011 Am.Sub.S.B. No. 5, which modifies public-employee collective bargaining law. 
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and an award of attorney fees, and the judgment of the court of appeals is 
affirmed.  We deny Waiters’s request for oral argument. 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Law Offices of S. David Worhatch and S. David Worhatch, for appellant. 
 
Goldstein Gragel, L.L.C., Joyce Goldstein, and Shelley M. Fleming, for 
appellee International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 38. 
______________________