Opinion ID: 4545446
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: {¶ 11} The question we must answer is whether Judge O’Diam is entitled to outside counsel at the county’s expense when he did not use the process set forth in R.C. 309.09(A), 305.14(A), and 305.17. {¶ 12} Judge O’Diam claims that his inherent authority as a judge entitles him to force the county to pay any legal expenses arising out of his official duties. Determining the full scope of a court’s inherent authority presents a difficult question that requires working out the proper boundaries of competing principles related to both the separation of powers and the balance of powers. See State ex rel. Johnston v. Taulbee, 66 Ohio St.2d 417, 426, 423 N.E.2d 80 (1981) (Holmes, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). But we need not fully wade into those deep waters here. This is so, because the inherent power of a court does not allow a judge to sidestep an otherwise constitutional statutory process. In short, the General Assembly has passed a set of statutes that provide a process through which county officials—including judges—can get legal counsel. And unless those statutes are constitutionally infirm in some way, that is something that the General Assembly had the power to do. Because there is no constitutional infirmity in the statutory scheme, officials must abide by it. Judge O’Diam did not, and hence he is not entitled to force the county to pay for his lawyer. Judge O’Diam did not follow the statutory process {¶ 13} R.C. 309.09(A), 305.14(A), and 305.17 set forth the process through which county officials, including judges, may procure outside legal counsel. R.C. 309.09(A) states that “[t]he prosecuting attorney shall be the legal advisor of    county officers and boards” and “shall prosecute and defend all suits and actions that any such officer [or] board    directs or to which it is a party.” That 5 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO provision also states that “no county officer may employ any other counsel or attorney at the expense of the county, except as provided in [R.C. 305.14].” Id. {¶ 14} R.C. 305.14(A), in turn, states that “[t]he court of common pleas, upon application of the prosecuting attorney and the board of county commissioners, may authorize the board to employ legal counsel to assist the prosecuting attorney.” Such representation may extend to “any matter of public business coming before such board or officer” or to “the prosecution or defense of any action or proceeding in which such board or officer is a party or has an interest, in its official capacity.” Id. Finally, R.C. 305.17 provides that the board “shall fix the compensation of all persons appointed or employed under [R.C. 305.14].” {¶ 15} So, in broad outline, the statutory scheme sets forth the following process for county officials to procure outside representation. Normally, the county prosecuting attorney will represent any county official in any matter related to the official’s public business. R.C. 309.09(A). But if the prosecuting attorney cannot adequately represent the official, the prosecuting attorney and the board should apply to the court of common pleas, which may authorize the board to employ outside counsel. R.C. 305.14(A). Upon such authorization, the board has the authority to employ and fix the compensation of that counsel. R.C. 305.17. {¶ 16} Here, Judge O’Diam simply didn’t use this process. In early March 2018, he sua sponte appointed Porter Wright to represent him. In the meantime, the board and prosecuting attorney attempted to use the statutory process. They applied to the court of common pleas and in early April, the court of common pleas authorized the employment of outside counsel. At that point, the board attempted to find outside counsel for Judge O’Diam but he refused to participate in the process and instead insisted that Porter Wright would represent him, thereby thwarting the authority of the board to employ and fix the compensation of outside counsel. So, in essence, Judge O’Diam made a de facto appointment of private counsel and then 6 January Term, 2020 insisted that the statutory process be nothing more than a rubber stamp of his decision regarding both the identity of counsel and counsel’s compensation. A judge cannot rely on his inherent authority to avoid a constitutional statutory scheme {¶ 17} Judge O’Diam seems to think that his inherent authority as a judge allows him to avoid the statutory process. He suggests that sidestepping the statutory process is permitted because of separation-of-powers principles. But separation of powers is only half of the equation. The other half is the balance of powers. As we are taught in elementary school, the American system of government is premised on a system of checks and balances. An important function of that system is to prevent one government entity from acting unilaterally without some form of check placed on it by other parts of the government. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 593, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (Frankfurter, J., concurring); see also The Federalist No. 51 at 351-352 (Cooke Ed.1961). {¶ 18} Part of checks and balances is that different branches of government place constraints on what other branches can do. By constitutional design, the legislative branch has the authority to legislate and appropriate monies; the executive branch the duty to see that laws are faithfully executed; and the judicial branch the authority to say what the law is. See generally Ohio Constitution, Articles II through IV; see also The Federalist No. 78 at 523 (Cooke Ed.1961). The diffusion of these powers in the respective branches of government allows each branch of government to act as a check on the other two. Thus, courts have to abide by constitutionally sound statutes, and the legislative and executive branches have to abide by constitutional limits as interpreted by courts. {¶ 19} True, this court in the past has recognized that the judicial branch has some inherent power to procure funding essential for the exercise of its functions. State ex rel. Finley v. Pfeiffer, 163 Ohio St. 149, 154-155, 126 N.E.2d 7 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 57 (1955). But the inherent authority of a court isn’t the right to demand money from taxpayers without constraint. Indeed, we have required courts to comply with the statutory process for procuring outside counsel. See State ex rel. Gains v. Maloney, 102 Ohio St.3d 254, 2004-Ohio-2658, 809 N.E.2d 24, ¶ 14. It therefore is a mistake to look to the inherent authority of the courts without first assessing whether the statutory process is unconstitutional. {¶ 20} Is there a separation-of-powers problem with the statutory scheme? We’ve never said there was, despite having applied the relevant statutes in other cases. See id. at ¶ 14. And it’s hard to see how there could be. R.C. 309.09(A) makes the prosecuting attorney the legal counselor for all county officials, including judges. But it recognizes that in certain cases, the prosecuting attorney may not be able to fulfill that role, and it allows additional legal counsel to be appointed through a specified process. As noted above, that process requires the county official to ask the prosecuting attorney and the board to provide outside counsel. R.C. 305.14(A). If those parties agree, they petition the court of common pleas to approve employing outside counsel. Id. Upon approval, the board arranges for and pays for counsel. R.C. 305.17. There is no apparent separation-of-powers problem with a scheme that provides a process through which the needs of the court can be met but also requires coordination with other parts of the government, and the parties have not meaningfully argued that there is one. {¶ 21} One might object that the board or prosecuting attorney could stymie the process by refusing to petition the court for approval and that presents a separation-of-powers problem. But two things are worth noting. First, that didn’t happen here. Second, if the board or prosecuting attorney refuses to seek counsel for the court, the court has a remedy—it may petition for a writ of mandamus to force the board and prosecuting attorney to comply with the statutory process. See State ex rel. Corrigan v. Seminatore, 66 Ohio St.2d 459, 463-464, 423 N.E.2d 105 (1981). Whether a writ should issue will be determined by the reviewing court in 8 January Term, 2020 the mandamus action. It is puzzling how one could think that there could be a separation-of-powers issue when a court would ultimately assess the reasonableness and necessity of the request. {¶ 22} So, nothing in the statutory process here undermines basic separation-of-powers principles. Judge O’Diam just didn’t use that process. And the inherent powers of the courts do not license a judge to thwart the otherwise constitutional statutory processes for hiring counsel set forth in R.C. 309.09(A), 305.14(A), and 305.17. {¶ 23} It is true that we have sometimes allowed a court to invoke its inherent powers to procure outside counsel, but in those cases the statutory process had broken down in some way. For instance, in Wilke, the board had refused to join the prosecuting attorney’s application asking the court of common pleas to appoint outside counsel for the probate court. State ex rel. Wilke v. Hamilton Cty. Bd. of Commrs., 90 Ohio St.3d 55, 65, 734 N.E.2d 811 (2000). Similarly, in Hillyer, we noted that it was the board’s failure to comply with a previously granted writ that allowed a court to “bypass the normal statutory procedure.” State ex rel. Hillyer v. Tuscarawas Cty. Bd. of Commrs., 70 Ohio St.3d 94, 98, 637 N.E.2d 311 (1994). {¶ 24} But here, neither the board nor the prosecuting attorney refused to ask the court of common pleas to authorize outside counsel. Rather, they were in the process of finding such counsel. And, again, the inherent authority of a court is not a free license to ignore a statutory process that satisfies constitutional requirements. Judges cannot simply demand that the taxpayers pay for their every wish without complying with the lawful processes set forth by the General Assembly. {¶ 25} Judge O’Diam and the dissenting opinion seem to contemplate a system in which a judge demands money and the other political branches have to simply comply, regardless of what statutory scheme is in place. Reviewing courts 9 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO play a de minimis role, asking only whether the county has shown that the judge’s request is unreasonable—a burden that is nearly insurmountable for almost any request. {¶ 26} What Judge O’Diam and the dissent envision isn’t a formula that respects the balance of powers. Their view of a court’s inherent powers, we suspect, comes from some vague language in prior caselaw that discusses a court’s inherent powers in abstract terms, without the benefit of much concrete analysis. See, e.g., Johnston, 66 Ohio St.2d at 421-422, 423 N.E.2d 80. But as we have explained, we need not revisit the constitutional scope of a court’s inherent powers here, because before getting to the question of the scope of a court’s inherent authority, one would first have to establish that the statutory scheme is unsound. And the scheme at issue here is plainly not. {¶ 27} The dissent tries to downplay the implications of what it proposes. It insists, for instance, that it agrees with the majority of this court that a judge “ ‘cannot simply demand that the taxpayers pay for their every wish.’ ” Dissenting opinion at ¶ 51, quoting majority opinion at ¶ 24. But make no mistake. In the dissent’s formulation, compliance with a constitutional statutory scheme is largely irrelevant. According to the dissent, the only time a county may require that a judge follow the statutory process is when it can demonstrate that the judge’s ultimate actions are “unreasonable and unnecessary.” This reasoning turns the normal order of things on its head—the presumption becomes not that the judge must follow the law, but rather that if the board would like the judge to follow the statutory process, it needs to demonstrate that what the judge wants to do is unreasonable and unnecessary. Because the unreasonable-and-unnecessary test is so deferential, the net effect would be to make established procedures for court funding mere suggestions and allow any judge to hire counsel at public expense almost anytime he disagreed with a county budgetary decision. 10 January Term, 2020 {¶ 28} The dissent’s reasoning works a breathtaking expansion of our precedents. It would allow a judge to unilaterally appoint counsel for himself, entirely outside the statutory process, and then insist on reimbursement, subject only to the constraint that the appointment of outside counsel wasn’t unreasonable and unnecessary. Our prior cases hardly support such unbridled authority. For instance, in Wilke, on which the dissent primarily relies, this court allowed a judge to recover expenses for outside counsel even though the board had refused to join the prosecuting attorney in applying to the court of common pleas for the appointment. 90 Ohio St.3d 55, 734 N.E.2d 811. But the judge at least attempted to use the statutory process, and importantly, the application was approved by the common pleas court. It was hardly the sort of unilateral action, subject only to the “unreasonable and unnecessary” constraint that the dissent’s reasoning would seem to allow. {¶ 29} In order for balance-of-powers principles to meaningfully constrain the judiciary, we cannot do as the dissent suggests and replace validly enacted statutes with an overarching as-long-as-it-is-not-unreasonable-and-unnecessary test. Judges, like everyone else, must comply with valid laws. The board and prosecuting attorney’s alleged conflict of interest did not justify ignoring the statutory scheme {¶ 30} Judge O’Diam and the dissent attempt to justify dodging the statutory process on the ground that the prosecuting attorney had a conflict of interest at the time Judge O’Diam hired outside counsel. They base this claim on the fact that the prosecuting attorney’s office uses Courtroom 3 for grand-jury proceedings, as well as the fact that the prosecuting attorney’s office had provided some preliminary advice to the board about the courtroom dispute and would likely represent the board and common pleas court in any litigation. This reasoning fails to appreciate the nature of county-level decision-making. 11 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO {¶ 31} By statute, the prosecuting attorney is required to be the legal adviser to all of the county’s elected officials. See R.C. 309.09. Though the primary interest of elected officials should be to serve the public, different officials often have different views on how to achieve that goal. Thus, disagreements and competing claims among elected officials are innate in county government. The allocation of county resources is generally a zero-sum game. When one county office receives additional funding, another county office is necessarily denied that funding. The same goes with the allocation of space. But the prosecuting attorney is still tasked with representing these officials. And competing claims by themselves do not rise to a conflict mandating the appointment of outside counsel; otherwise each county official would be entitled to unilaterally hire his or her own lawyer every time budget season rolled around. {¶ 32} Moreover, this sort of innate competition doesn’t plausibly preclude the prosecuting attorney from requesting outside counsel when necessary. Nor does it prevent the board—an entity that by its nature is tasked with weighing competing claims for money—from hiring outside counsel. So, the alleged conflict here doesn’t justify ignoring the statutory process. Thus, we deny Judge O’Diam’s request to require the county to pay his attorney fees. We deny the request for court costs {¶ 33} The mandamus petition also seeks court costs associated with the litigation in this case. We deny that request. As discussed, R.C. 309.09(A) directs the prosecuting attorney to handle “all suits and actions” for a county officer acting in his official capacity, absent a valid appointment of outside counsel. Because Judge O’Diam did not follow the statutory process, he cannot require the county to pay his court costs. See State ex rel. Cuyahoga Cty. v. Jones Lang LaSalle Great Lakes Co., 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 104157, 2017-Ohio-7727, ¶ 76-81; State ex rel. Scripps Media, Inc. v. Hunter, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-130241, 2013-Ohio-5895, 12 January Term, 2020 ¶ 25 (pro se motion from judge was stricken because the “right to representation was prescribed by    R.C. 305.14(A) and 309.09(A)”). {¶ 34} Judge O’Diam also filed a separate motion, citing R.C. 2303.201(E)(1), requesting that this court order the board to approve reimbursement of court costs out of the probate court’s discretionary specialprojects fund and requesting an extension of time for the payment of such costs. But the complaint for a writ of mandamus nowhere mentions funding such costs through a special-projects account, nor does it plead any facts pertaining to the existence of a special-projects account, the amount contained in it, and the criteria for accessing it. See S.Ct.Prac.R. 12.02(B)(1) (requiring a complaint to state specific facts and to be supported by an affidavit specifying the details of the claim). Accordingly, we do not reach this claim because it is not properly before us. See State ex rel. Massie v. Gahanna-Jefferson Pub. Schools Bd. of Edn., 76 Ohio St.3d 584, 589, 669 N.E.2d 839 (1996).