[Cite as State ex rel. Bardwell v. Cleveland, 126 Ohio St.3d 195, 2010-Ohio-3267.] 

THE STATE EX REL. BARDWELL, APPELLEE, v. 

CITY OF CLEVELAND ET AL., APPELLANTS. 

[Cite as State ex rel. Bardwell v. Cleveland, 

126 Ohio St.3d 195, 2010-Ohio-3267.] 

Public Records Act — Reports filed by pawnbrokers — Judgment reversed. 

(No. 2009-2192 — Submitted June 9, 2010 — Decided July 15, 2010.) 

APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, 

No. 91831, 2009-Ohio-5688. 

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 Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals insofar as it found 

that appellants, the city of Cleveland and Chief Michael McGrath of the 

Cleveland Division of Police, violated their duty under the Public Records Act to 

organize and maintain public records received from pawnbrokers in a manner that 

allows them to be made available for inspection and copying. The court of 

appeals granted a writ of mandamus to compel appellants to disclose a complete 

list of pawnbrokers in the city and ordered appellants to pay $1,000 in statutory 

damages.1

{¶ 2} The court of appeals held that appellants failed to “organize and 

maintain public records in a manner that they can be made available for 

inspection or copying” in compliance with R.C. 149.43(B)(2). Among the 

records requested by appellee, Brian Bardwell, were the reports submitted to the 

 

1. This holding was premised in part on the court of appeals’ finding that appellants had 

committed a violation of R.C. 149.43(B)(1) by failing to promptly disclose a complete list of 

pawnbrokers to appellee and that the delay in doing so warranted the $1,000 award of statutory 

damages. That portion of the judgment is not challenged by appellants and is not reversed by our 

holding. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

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police chief by pawnbrokers pursuant to R.C. 4727.09. The court of appeals 

concluded that “[t]he system of 3 x 5 inch index cards with information on both 

sides is antiquated. It produced an unwieldy number of cards. The process of 

copying, redacting, and recopying in order to make effective redactions is not 

maintaining records in a manner to make them available for inspection or 

copying. The court further finds that this process substantially contributed to the 

delay in releasing the records.” 2009-Ohio-5688, 2009 WL 3478444, ¶ 19. 

{¶ 3} This case asks us to consider the efficacy of Cleveland’s method of 

organizing and maintaining reports submitted by pawnbrokers to the chief of 

police. R.C. 4727.09 requires that pawnbrokers provide to police chiefs on a 

daily basis (1) a description of all property pledged with or purchased by the 

pawnbroker and (2) the number of the form used to document the pledge or 

purchase, but the statute does not require that the information be supplied in any 

particular form. Pawnbrokers have submitted this information on both sides of 

preprinted index cards. There is no evidence that the city requires that 

pawnbrokers submit the information on these cards. 

{¶ 4} Once these cards are received by the police chief, they are public 

records. Although R.C. 149.43(B)(2) imposes a duty on appellants to “organize 

and maintain public records in a manner that they can be made available for 

inspection and copying,” there is no duty imposed on public offices and officials 

to store the records in a different form from the form in which they were received. 

{¶ 5} “ ‘It is axiomatic that in mandamus proceedings, the creation of the 

legal duty that a relator seeks to enforce is the distinct function of the legislative 

branch of government, and courts are not authorized to create the legal duty.’ ” 

State ex rel. Gessner v. Vore, 123 Ohio St.3d 96, 2009-Ohio-4150, 914 N.E.2d 

376, ¶ 4, quoting State ex rel. Pipoly v. State Teachers Retirement Sys., 95 Ohio 

St.3d 327, 2002-Ohio-2219, 767 N.E.2d 719, ¶ 18. Although from a policy 

standpoint appellants could reduce delays in satisfying public-records requests in 
January Term, 2010 

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the future by requesting pawnbrokers to submit this information on an 81⁄2- by 11-

inch, one-sided paper form, there is no requirement under R.C. 149.43(B)(2) that 

appellants do so, and the court of appeals was not authorized to create such a 

duty. The city and its police chief “have no duty to create or provide access to 

nonexistent records.” State ex rel. Lanham v. Smith, 112 Ohio St.3d 527, 2007-

Ohio-609, 861 N.E.2d 530, ¶ 15. Under these circumstances, the court of appeals 

erred in holding that appellants violated R.C. 149.43(B)(2). Appellants did not 

fail to organize and maintain the index cards they received from pawnbrokers in 

such a manner that the cards could be made available for inspection and copying. 

Judgment reversed. 

 PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR, and LANZINGER, JJ., concur. 

 BROWN, C.J., and O’DONNELL and CUPP, JJ., concur separately. 

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 O’DONNELL, J., concurring. 

{¶ 6} I concur with the majority’s decision to reverse the judgment of the 

court of appeals, because R.C. 149.43(B)(2) does not require public records to be 

maintained in any particular manner or form. Thus, while the city of Cleveland’s 

outdated method of organizing and maintaining reports submitted by pawnbrokers 

to the chief of police resulted in the delayed production of the public records 

Bardwell had requested, the city nonetheless made those records available to him. 

{¶ 7} However, although I agree that the city did not violate R.C. 

149.43(B)(2) in this case, R.C. 149.43(B)(1) mandates that public records be 

“promptly prepared and made available.” Accordingly, when its budget allows, 

the city could take advantage of technological advances to upgrade its publicrecords system to minimize any delay in responding to public-records requests. 

 BROWN, C.J., and CUPP,J., concur in the foregoing opinion. 

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SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

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 Robert J. Triozzi, Cleveland Director of Law, and Jerome A. Payne Jr., 

Assistant Director of Law, for appellants. 

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