[Cite as Strothers v. Norton, 131 Ohio St.3d 359, 2012-Ohio-1007.] 

STROTHERS, APPELLANT AND CROSS-APPELLEE, v. NORTON, MAYOR, 

APPELLEE AND CROSS-APPELLANT. 

[Cite as Strothers v. Norton, 131 Ohio St.3d 359, 2012-Ohio-1007.] 

Public records—Portion of court of appeals’ judgment denying writ of mandamus 

affirmed—Portion of judgment awarding statutory damages reversed. 

(No. 2011-1483—Submitted March 7, 2012—Decided March 15, 2012.) 

APPEAL and CROSS-APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, 

No. 96147, 2011-Ohio-3694. 

__________________ 

Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} This is an appeal from a judgment denying the request of appellant 

and cross-appellee, Gerald O. Strothers Jr., for a writ of mandamus to compel 

appellee and cross-appellant, East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton Jr., to provide 

access to review, inspect, and copy at cost various records. Norton cross-appeals 

from that portion of the judgment awarding Strothers $1,000 in statutory damages 

on his public-records mandamus claim. 

{¶ 2} We affirm the portion of the judgment denying the writ of 

mandamus and reverse the portion awarding statutory damages. 

Facts

{¶ 3} By certified letter dated December 1, 2010, Strothers requested 

that Norton allow him “to review, inspect and or copy [certain] public records 

pertaining to East Cleveland Ohio from (2009 to present)” relating to the East 

Cleveland jail. These records included (1) copies of the contracts to provide 

food/catering and laundry service for jail prisoners, (2) all financial records that 

contain data about the jail—including “all payments made and received, amounts 

paid to outside contractors, bid requests, proposals and resumes of any winning 
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and non-winning bidder(s),” (3) documents related to all purchases of jail 

bedding, pads, and sheets, (4) requests for “bids of jail plumbing problems 

including the many non-working sinks and toilets in the facility, this may include 

repairs made by in-house custodians; all plumbing invoices,” (5) “Certification to 

provide medical care, dispense medications by jail personnel or written 

authorization allowing non-medical personnel, correctional officers to dispense 

prescription medications,” (6) “Extermination Contracts or requests for 

extermination services made by jail personnel and prisoners, including the plan to 

address rat, mice, and insect infestation at the jail facility; all service calls from 

outside professional and nonprofessional exterminators,” (7) “Jail policy 

pertaining to prisoners’ use of telephones, showers, and being able to step out of 

their cells for exercise and recreation, or letter directing jail personnel to keep 

prisoners caged up without release,” (8) inspection reports from the state and 

Cuyahoga County offices tasked with monitoring jail facilities, and (9) “Written 

jail policies pertaining to prisoner treatment, phone calls, medical attention, and 

discipline including incidents where prisoners were stunned with electronic nonlethal weapons and physically restrained using chains or handcuffs.” 

{¶ 4} In his request, Strothers acknowledged the breadth of his request: 

 I realize that this is a large request for documents but it is 

my intention to review the requested records within a reasonable 

amount of time and perhaps help our fair city avoid any future 

mistreatment of prisoners in the city jail facility. 

{¶ 5} The certified-mail receipt indicates that the request was received 

on behalf of the mayor on December 2, 2010. Strothers reiterated his request at 

the December 7, 2010 regular meeting of the East Cleveland City Council. 
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3 

{¶ 6} On December 9, 2010, only a week after Strothers’s public-records 

request was received by Norton, Strothers filed a petition in the Eighth District 

Court of Appeals for a writ of mandamus to compel Norton to provide access to 

the requested records. 

{¶ 7} On December 21, Norton, through Brenda L. Blanks, the executive 

assistant to the East Cleveland law director, provided copies of some of the 

requested records to Strothers. On that same day, Strothers submitted a written 

request for records pertaining to the city’s traffic cameras, including the revenue 

generated by each of them. 

{¶ 8} On January 13, 18, and 25, Norton provided Strothers with access 

to the remaining records listed in his initial request. Some of these records were 

sent to Strothers by certified mail, but they were returned because Strothers did 

not sign for them. In a subsequent telephone conversation, Strothers advised 

Blanks that he never requested that she send him copies of the records and that he 

wanted instead to come to the office to review the records and scan the ones he 

wanted into his personal computer. Blanks told Strothers that he could make an 

appointment during regular business hours to review the records, but Strothers did 

not make an appointment to do so. 

{¶ 9} After Norton filed a response to Strothers’s mandamus petition and 

Strothers filed a motion for summary judgment, the court of appeals ordered the 

parties to file an inventory listing the records that had been requested and those 

that had been made available. Attached to Norton’s inventory was the 

uncontroverted affidavit of Blanks specifying that all of the requested records had 

been made available to Strothers. 

{¶ 10} The court of appeals denied the writ of mandamus, but awarded 

Strothers $1,000 in statutory damages. 

{¶ 11} This cause is now before the court upon Strothers’s appeal and 

Norton’s cross-appeal. 
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Analysis

Appeal 

{¶ 12} In his appeal, Strothers asserts that the court of appeals erred in 

denying the requested writ of mandamus. Strothers claims that the court of 

appeals committed error by ruling that 45 days was a reasonable amount of time 

for the mayor to take to make records available and that a request for public 

records must be made by affidavit. But the court of appeals did not so hold. 

{¶ 13} Instead, the court of appeals correctly held that Norton’s evidence, 

which included the uncontroverted affidavit of Blanks and attached exhibits, 

established that Strothers had been given access to all of the requested records, 

which rendered his mandamus claim moot. See State ex rel. Striker v. Smith, 129 

Ohio St.3d 168, 2011-Ohio-2878, 950 N.E.2d 952, ¶ 22, quoting State ex rel. 

Toledo Blade Co. v. Toledo-Lucas Cty. Port Auth., 121 Ohio St.3d 537, 2009-

Ohio-1767, 905 N.E.2d 1221, ¶ 14 (“ ‘In general, providing the requested records 

to the relator in a public-records mandamus case renders the mandamus claim 

moot’ ”). Strothers did not submit the requisite clear and convincing proof to the 

contrary. See State ex rel. Doner v. Zody, 130 Ohio St.3d 446, 2011-Ohio-6117, 

958 N.E.2d 1235, paragraph three of the syllabus (“Relators in mandamus cases 

must prove their entitlement to the writ by clear and convincing evidence”). 

{¶ 14} Nor did the court of appeals abuse its discretion in refusing to 

consider Strothers’s claim for records concerning the city’s traffic camera. 

Strothers claims that the court refused to consider that claim because his request 

was not made in an affidavit. Actually, the court held that it would not consider 

that claim because Strothers had not included it in his mandamus petition. “R.C. 

149.43(C) requires a prior request as a prerequisite to a mandamus action.” State 

ex rel. Taxpayers Coalition v. Lakewood, 86 Ohio St.3d 385, 390, 715 N.E.2d 179 

(1999). Strothers did not submit his request for the traffic-camera records before 

he filed his mandamus petition, and he did not thereafter seek leave to amend his 
January Term, 2012 

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petition to include the claim. In fact, even in this appeal, Strothers attempts to 

include a claim related to yet another request for public records. Yet this request, 

which did not precede the filing of his mandamus petition, was likewise not 

included in his petition or in a motion to amend it. This claim was not even raised 

in the court of appeals. State ex rel. DeGroot v. Tilsley, 128 Ohio St.3d 311, 

2011-Ohio-231, 943 N.E.2d 1018, ¶ 9 (appellant in mandamus case waived claim 

that she had failed to raise in the court of appeals). 

{¶ 15} Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals denying 

the writ of mandamus. 

Cross-Appeal 

{¶ 16} In his cross-appeal, Norton asserts that the court of appeals erred in 

awarding Strothers $1,000 in statutory damages. Norton first claims that 

Strothers lacked standing to institute his mandamus action and receive an award 

of statutory damages because he is not an aggrieved party for purposes of R.C. 

149.43(C) since his request for public records was “merely a pretext to obtain 

statutory damages.” 

{¶ 17} R.C. 149.43(C)(1) provides: 

 If a person allegedly is aggrieved by the failure of a public 

office or the person responsible for public records to promptly 

prepare a public record and to make it available to the person for 

inspection in accordance with division (B) of this section or by any 

other failure of a public office or the person responsible for public 

records to comply with an obligation in accordance with division 

(B) of this section, the person allegedly aggrieved may commence 

a mandamus action to obtain a judgment that orders the public 

office or the person responsible for the public record to comply 

with division (B) of this section, that awards court costs and 
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reasonable attorney’s fees to the person that instituted the 

mandamus action, and, if applicable, that includes an order fixing 

statutory damages under division (C)(1) of this section. 

{¶ 18} Norton waived this claim because he did not raise it in the court of 

appeals. See State ex rel. Hawthorn v. Russell, 107 Ohio St.3d 269, 2005-Ohio6431, 838 N.E.2d 666, ¶ 8 (appellants waived legal-capacity issue by failing to 

raise objection in the court of appeals). 

{¶ 19} Moreover, as we recently emphasized in Rhodes v. New 

Philadelphia, 129 Ohio St.3d 304, 2011-Ohio-3279, 951 N.E.2d 782, at ¶ 21: 

 The broad language used in R.C. 149.43 manifests the 

General Assembly’s intent to jealously protect the right of the 

people to access public records. We are acutely aware of the 

importance of the right provided by the act and the vulnerability of 

that right when the records are in the hands of public officials who 

are reluctant to release them. For this reason, we stress that public 

offices are obligated to honor public-record requests regardless of 

the requester’s reasons for or objectives in requesting the records. 

Allowing the genuineness of a person’s request to be within the 

purview of the public office would invite recalcitrance and would 

not promote the purpose of the act. 

(Emphasis added.) 

{¶ 20} Therefore, Strothers’s possible motive in requesting the public 

records did not divest him of standing to sue under R.C. 149.43(C)(1). 

{¶ 21} Nevertheless, we hold that Norton’s claim that the court of appeals 

abused its discretion in granting statutory damages to Strothers has merit. An 
January Term, 2012 

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award of statutory damages under R.C. 149.43(C)(1) is premised on a violation of 

R.C. 149.43(B). Under R.C. 149.43(B)(1), two primary means are specified for 

providing access to public records: “(1) making the records ‘available for 

inspection to any person at all reasonable times during regular business hours’ and 

(2) making ‘copies of the requested public record[s] available at cost and within a 

reasonable period of time.’ ” State ex rel. Patton v. Rhodes, 129 Ohio St.3d 182, 

2011-Ohio-3093, 950 N.E.2d 965, ¶ 15, quoting R.C. 149.43(B)(1). Whether a 

public office or a person responsible for public records can be deemed to have 

complied with these duties is dependent upon the facts and circumstances 

involved. See State ex rel. Wadd v. Cleveland, 81 Ohio St.3d 50, 53, 689 N.E.2d 

25 (1998). 

{¶ 22} The pertinent facts here include the following: (1) Strothers filed a 

December 2010 request for myriad records relating to the East Cleveland jail, (2) 

Strothers admitted that his request constituted a “large request for documents,” (3) 

Strothers filed his mandamus action a mere week after Norton received his 

request, (4) Strothers requested other records during the period in which Norton 

was attempting to respond to his first request, (5) Norton provided access to all of 

the records related to the initial request by January 25, 2011, and (6) Strothers 

declined to accept delivery of some of the requested records and failed to contact 

the city to set an appropriate time to review the records. 

{¶ 23} Under these circumstances, we agree with the judge of the court of 

appeals who dissented from the statutory-damages portion of the judgment: 

Norton produced the records within a reasonable period of time. 2011-Ohio3694, 2011 WL 3211177, at ¶ 22-25 (Stewart, J., concurring in part and dissenting 

in part). 

{¶ 24} Therefore, we reverse that portion of the judgment granting $1,000 

in statutory damages to Strothers. 

 
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Conclusion

{¶ 25} Based on the foregoing, we affirm the portion of the judgment of 

the court of appeals denying the writ of mandamus and reverse the portion 

awarding statutory damages. 

Judgment affirmed in part 

and reversed in part. 

O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL,

LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 

__________________ 

 Gerald O. Strothers Jr., pro se. 

 Ronald K. Riley, East Cleveland Director of Law, for appellee and crossappellant. 

______________________