[Cite as Browning v. Zoological Soc. of Cincinnati, 2020-Ohio-4042.] 

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO 

HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO 

MELISSA BROWNING, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 vs. 

ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF 

CINCINNATI, 

 Defendant-Appellant, 

 and 

SARAH MORRISON, 

ADMINISTRATOR, OHIO BUREAU 

OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION, 

 Defendant. 

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APPEAL NO. C-190381 

TRIAL NO. A-1802224 

 O P I N I O N.

 

Civil Appeal From: Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas 

Judgment Appealed From Is: Affirmed 

Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: August 12, 2020 

Kneflin and Associates, LLC, Chrisopher Kneflin and Brent Martini, for PlaintiffAppellee Melissa Browning, 

Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, LLP, and Andrew R. Thaler, for Defendant-Appellant 

Zoological Society of Cincinnati. 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

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BERGERON, Judge. 

{¶1} In this worker’s compensation appeal, the entire basis for seeking to 

overturn the trial court’s result is the court’s admission that it may not have 

scrutinized each page of the record. The employer seizes upon this as its ticket for 

reversal, but in so doing, seeks to impose an obligation on trial courts to fly-speck 

every sheet of paper that the parties heave onto their desks. The trial court here 

evinced great familiarity with the case and the nuances of the claim at hand, and 

certainly reviewed the record in depth. We have no hesitation in affirming its 

decision. 

{¶2} In January 2013, plaintiff-appellee Melissa Browning suffered an ankle 

injury during the course of her employment with defendant-appellant Zoological 

Society of Cincinnati (the “Zoo”). Stemming from this injury, Ms. Browning filed a 

claim with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, with her claim permitted as 

to the conditions of left ankle sprain, closed fracture of the lateral malleolus, and 

right knee contusion. Ms. Browning subsequently requested participation for an 

additional condition of “stage II posterior tibial tendon insufficiency with accessory 

navicular displacement.” But this condition did not fare as well, with all three 

administrative levels of the Industrial Commission denying this request. Ms. 

Browning accordingly appealed to the court of common pleas. 

{¶3} In April 2019, the trial court convened a single-day trial. During the 

trial, Ms. Browning presented her treating physician’s deposition, while the Zoo 

offered counter expert testimony (also by way of deposition). Both physicians agreed 

that Ms. Browning suffered from the requested accessory navicular displacement 

condition, but fenced over the condition’s relation to any work injury. Also during 

trial, the court admitted into evidence the parties’ stipulated joint exhibits containing 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

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Ms. Browning’s prior medical records, all contained in a single binder. Upon 

receiving all of this evidence and testimony, the court then retired, taking a day to 

review everything. The next day, the parties returned and the court announced its 

decision, opening the hearing with a candid statement: 

THE COURT: I’ve listened to the testimony. I’ve reviewed the medical 

opinions and some of the records. I can’t say I’ve reviewed each and 

every one of 500 pages or so. 

The court then proceeded to emphasize the specific portions of the evidence and 

testimony that it relied upon, ultimately finding in Ms. Browning’s favor. In the 

wake of this decision, the Zoo now appeals, not contesting the merits of the trial 

court’s determination but rather assigning error to the court’s purported failure to 

review the entire record prior to entering its judgment. 

{¶4} The Zoo proclaims that the court committed reversible error when it 

failed to consider all the exhibits before rendering judgment, citing Higgins v. 

Buehrer, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-160288, 2016-Ohio-7214, for support. 

Specifically, the Zoo posits that, because the court acknowledged it “can’t say [it] 

reviewed each and every one of 500 pages or so,” the record demonstrates that the 

trial court failed to examine the stipulated joint exhibits prior to ruling in favor of 

Ms. Browning. 

{¶5} Because the Zoo doubles down on Higgins, we begin there. In 

Higgins, a single-day bench trial commenced, with the parties offering the court, 

prior to opening statements, several stipulated exhibits concerning Mr. Higgins’s 

prior medical records, which the court admitted. However, after closing arguments, 

the trial court immediately issued its ruling, never examining the stipulated exhibits 

the parties tendered the court earlier that day. This court ultimately reversed and 
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remanded for a new trial, holding that a trial court possesses “a duty to thoroughly 

review all evidence and exhibits that were made a part of the record in the case 

before it prior to entering judgment,” which the trial court failed to do in that case. 

Id. at ¶ 6. We reasoned that an examination of the entire record is necessary for 

evaluating whether a party satisfied its burden and for properly rendering credibility 

determinations. Id. at ¶ 6-7. Therefore, because the record “affirmatively 

demonstrated that the trial court failed to consider all evidence,” specifically the 

stipulated exhibits, this court reversed and remanded for a new trial. Id. at ¶ 9. 

{¶6} Reading Higgins broadly, the Zoo seemingly envisions that Higgins 

requires a trial court to independently dissect each and every page of the record prior 

to issuing its decision. We think this pushes Higgins past its breaking point. As this 

court emphasized, Higgins constituted a “rare case in which it ha[d] been 

affirmatively demonstrated that the trial court failed to consider all evidence,” with 

the court admitting the stipulated exhibits at the beginning of the single-day trial, 

and then rendering a decision later that very day without taking any time to review 

the exhibits. Id. at ¶ 9. In other words, the trial court in Higgins effectively refused 

to examine properly-admitted evidence. See id. at ¶ 7. While the trial court must 

“thoroughly review all evidence and exhibits” admitted before its ruling, id. at ¶ 6, we 

never suggested that the trial court must break out the magnifying glass to scrutinize 

each scrap of paper in the record. 

{¶7} The Zoo’s position seems to hinge on the notion that just because an 

exhibit was stipulated to by the parties, it must be critically relevant. Not so. 

Attorneys stipulate to exhibits all the time for various reasons, and they often fill the 

record with scores of admissible exhibits that might have no bearing on the court’s 

overall analysis. We are loath to place a burden on the trial court to individually 
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

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inspect countless pages of records not necessarily relevant to the issue at hand. To 

read Higgins as such would essentially shift the parties’ burden to the trial court, 

with the likely result that they would inject even more extraneous documents into the 

record, hoping for a safety valve for an appeal if the trial court failed to recall the 

details of each page. See GMS Mgt. Co. v. Nguyen, 9th Dist. Wayne No. 08CA0014, 

2008-Ohio-6574, ¶ 20 (“[A]nd it was [the appellant’s] lawyer’s job, through 

argument, to call the trial court’s attention to relevant provisions and explain their 

relevance.”); In re S Children, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-170624 and C-170653, 2018-

Ohio-2961, ¶ 24 (“Moreover, we do not accept the argument that it is the trial court’s 

duty to root through the records to unearth evidence favorable to a party. We utilize 

an adversarial court system, not an inquisitional one.”). 

{¶8} That is not what Higgins contemplated. We have a trial court here 

who professed to review the record, and whose detailed comments in issuing its 

decisions reflected a command of that very record. Unlike Higgins, we do not see 

any indication of a trial court skirting its obligations and refusing to consider record 

evidence. See In re S Children at ¶ 23-24 (reasoning the trial court’s statement that 

it had not “ ‘had an opportunity to review every single page in those medical 

records,’ ” did not “mean that the court had not looked at the documents at all,” and 

thus unlike Higgins, the trial court “did not clearly fail to review exhibits prior to 

ruling.”). Accordingly, we cannot find this is one of the rare cases where the record 

affirmatively demonstrates the trial court failed to consider all the evidence prior to 

its ruling. 

{¶9} We accordingly overrule the Zoo’s sole assignment of error and affirm 

the judgment of the trial court.

 Judgment affirmed.
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS

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MYERS, P.J., and CROUSE, J., concur.

Please note: 

The court has recorded its own entry this date.