Opinion ID: 7013436
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Time Line of Events for the Present Action

Text: In January 1991, Rossborough was sued for damages in state court pursuant to ORC § 4121.80, by a worker who had been injured and by the estates of two workers who had been killed in an explosion at its Ohio manufacturing plant one year earlier. No determination of liability was made by the state court. In September 1992, shortly before the effective date of S.B. 192, Rossborough brought this action in federal court against J. Wesley Trimble, Administrator of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, and Mary Ellen Withrow, Treasurer of the State of Ohio, in then-official capacities, 1 , 2 seeking a judgment declaring that S.B. 192 violated various of Rossborough’s constitutional rights and requiring that payment be made from the Intentional Tort Disbursement Fund of any damages, attorneys fees, and costs resulting from the state court actions. In an order stipulated to by the parties, the district court stayed the transfer of the moneys in that Fund, pending resolution of this litigation. In December 1992 and January 1993, after the Brady decision, after S.B. 192 became effective, and after the Mayfield decision, Rossborough settled the state court lawsuits arising out of the 1990 explosion and paid the plaintiffs the' agreed amounts. Rossborough then sought reimbursement from the Fund and, unsuccessful in that effort, amended the complaint in this action to include the fact of settlement of the state lawsuits and the state defendants’ failure to reimburse. Rossborough’s complaint alleged six separate counts. First, Rossborough claimed that the Intentional Tort Act had vested in Ohio employers contractual rights to indemnification by the Fund for damages, attorney’s fees, and costs related to workplace injuries; that in reliance on the Intentional Tort Act, Rossborough had paid premiums into the Intentional Tort Fund and now had vested contractual rights to reimbursement from that Fund; and that S.B. 192 violates Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 (the contracts clause) of the United States Constitution because it impairs Rossborough’s vested contractual rights to reimbursement from that Fund. The second count claimed that Rossborough had paid its premiums into the Intentional Tort Fund as required by Ohio law, and the denial of its claims for reimbursement from that Fund violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the third count, Rossborough claimed that S.B. 192 and the state defendants’ denial of its claims for reimbursement from the Fund deprived it of property without compensation, in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Rossborough’s fourth count asserted a § 1983 claim against the state defendants’ actions for the alleged constitutional violations. The fifth count demanded that the assets of the Fund be placed in a constructive trust to indemnify Rossborough. Count six asserted statutory rights under the Intentional Tort Act. On September 29, 1995, the district court granted the state defendants’ motion to dismiss pursuant to Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), holding that under Ohio law an unconstitutional statute, whether state or federal, is in reality no law, that its unconstitutionality dates from the time of the law’s enactment, and the statute is therefore inoperative, as if it had never been passed. The district court further held that a contract resting on an unconstitutional statute creates no obligation that could be impaired by subsequent legislation. The district court acknowledged an exception to this principle: where a legislative act has been held to be constitutional, particularly by the Ohio Supreme Court, a subsequent judicial decision holding the act unconstitutional may be limited to prospective operation only. Accordingly, the court said, rights acquired under a statute adjudged by a court to be constitutional are valid legal rights that are protected by the constitution, not by judicial decision. But the court held that this exception did not apply to the Intentional Tort Act because that statute had never been adjudged to be constitutional, and it is the general rule that anyone assuming the validity of legislation does so at his own peril. Moreover, the court pointed out, the Ohio Supreme Court’s Mayfield decision made it clear that Brady’s invalidation of the Intentional Tort Act applied retroactively. Because the unconstitutional Intentional Tort Act created no enforceable interest or property right in Rossborough, the district court concluded, the counts in Rossbor-ough’s complaint alleging contracts clause and due process violations and an unconstitutional taking failed to state claims upon which relief may be granted. Because Rossborough’s constitutional claims failed, the court held, its § 1983 claim also failed. Since no federal claims remained, the district court chose not to exercise jurisdiction over the state law claims. After the Triple A and Rykon complaints were dismissed on the same grounds as the Rossborough claims had been dismissed, all of the plaintiffs moved to vacate the dismissals under Rule 60(a) or, alternatively, to alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e). Those motions were denied, and the plaintiffs timely appealed, challenging only the dismissal of their federal claims.