Court Opinion

ID: 9396612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-23 13:07:18.25319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:17.997082
License: Public Domain

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State
ex rel. Roush v. Hickson, Slip Opinion No. 2023-Ohio-1696.]

                                           NOTICE
      This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an
      advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested to
      promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65
      South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other
      formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before
      the opinion is published.

                          SLIP OPINION NO. 2023-OHIO-1696
  THE STATE EX REL . ROUSH, APPELLANT, v. HICKSON,1 JUDGE, APPELLEE.
  [Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it
         may be cited as State ex rel. Roush v. Hickson, Slip Opinion No.
                                     2023-Ohio-1696.]
Mandamus—A court must give the parties notice and an opportunity to be heard
        before taking notice of facts contained in another court’s docket and relying
        on those facts to sua sponte dismiss a complaint for failure to comply with
        R.C. 2969.25—Court of appeals failed to give appellant notice and an
        opportunity to be heard on propriety of its taking notice of his earlier
        federal filing before sua sponte dismissing his complaint for failure to
        comply with R.C. 2969.25(A)—Court of appeals’ judgment reversed and
        cause remanded.

1. The complaint named as the respondent Judge Henry E. Shaw Jr. of the Morrow County Court of
Common Pleas, who died during the pendency of this appeal. Judge Robert C. Hickson Jr. of the
Morrow County Court of Common Pleas has been substituted for Judge Shaw as appellee in this
appeal. See S.Ct.Prac.R. 4.06(B) and Civ.R. 25(D)(1).
                             SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

    (No. 2022-0619—Submitted January 10, 2023—Decided May 23, 2023.)
              APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Morrow County,
                                 No. 2022CA0005.
                            _______________________
       Per Curiam.
       {¶ 1} Appellant, Shane Roush, appeals the dismissal of his complaint for a
writ of mandamus to compel the common-pleas-court judge who sentenced him to
correct an allegedly illegal criminal sentence. The issue presented in this appeal is
whether a court must give the parties notice and an opportunity to be heard before
taking notice of facts contained in another court’s docket and relying on those facts
to sua sponte dismiss a complaint for failure to comply with R.C. 2969.25. We
hold that a court must do so. We therefore sustain Roush’s first and second
assignments of error, reverse the judgment of the court of appeals, and remand the
case to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Based on
our resolution of these assignments of error, we conclude that Roush’s remaining
arguments are not ripe.
                                    Background
       {¶ 2} In April 2022, Roush filed a complaint for a writ of mandamus in the
Fifth District Court of Appeals, arguing that his aggregate 25-year mandatory
prison sentence for attempted murder with specifications was unlawful because the
trial court had no authority to specify that the sentences for the individual criminal
offenses were mandatory.
       {¶ 3} As an inmate, Roush was required to file with his complaint an
affidavit describing each civil action or appeal of a civil action that he had filed in
the previous five years in any state or federal court.        See R.C. 2969.25(A).
“Compliance with R.C. 2969.25(A) is mandatory, and failure to comply will
warrant dismissal.” State v. Henton, 146 Ohio St.3d 9, 2016-Ohio-1518, 50 N.E.3d
553, ¶ 3. The affidavit Roush filed with his complaint states, in full, “I, Shane

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                                January Term, 2023

Roush, do hereby state and declare that I have not filed any Civil Complaints nor
any Civil/Criminal appeals within the last five years.”
       {¶ 4} In its entry dismissing Roush’s complaint, the court of appeals stated,
“On July 18, 2017, Roush filed a petition for [a] writ of habeas corpus in the United
States District Court, S.D.Ohio, Eastern Division.” The entry that the court of
appeals cited to support that finding, Roush v. Warden, S.D. Ohio No. 2:17-CV-
755, 2018 WL 836056 (Feb. 12, 2018), merely adopted a magistrate judge’s
recommendation that the action be dismissed, without specifying the nature of the
action or the date of its filing. We may therefore infer that the court of appeals
examined the federal court’s docket for that case—which was not part of the record
in this mandamus action—to determine that Roush had failed to disclose the 2017
habeas petition.
       {¶ 5} Because the habeas petition was filed within five years of the filing of
Roush’s mandamus complaint, the court of appeals concluded that Roush had failed
to comply with R.C. 2969.25(A). Accordingly, the court dismissed his complaint
sua sponte.
                                     Analysis
       {¶ 6} As his first two assignments of error, Roush argues that the court of
appeals erred by consulting the record of a case in another court to determine the
accuracy of his R.C. 2969.25(A) affidavit and by dismissing his complaint sua
sponte based on information it thereby obtained without first giving him notice and
an opportunity to be heard. On the facts before us, it is evident that the court of
appeals did take notice of another court’s docket in determining that Roush’s
affidavit did not comply with R.C. 2969.25(A).
       {¶ 7} “It is axiomatic that a trial court may take judicial notice of its own
docket.” Indus. Risk Insurers v. Lorenz Equip. Co., 69 Ohio St.3d 576, 580, 635
N.E.2d 14 (1994). In State ex rel. Neff v. Corrigan, 75 Ohio St.3d 12, 15-16, 661
N.E.2d 170 (1996), we affirmed the court of appeals’ judgment granting a motion

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                             SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

to dismiss a prohibition complaint and thereby approved of that court’s having
taken judicial notice of whether a particular issue had been presented and resolved
in earlier appeals in that court related to the same underlying litigation.
       {¶ 8} In State ex rel. Neguse v. McIntosh, 161 Ohio St.3d 125, 2020-Ohio-
3533, 161 N.E.3d 571, ¶ 18, we held that Neguse’s affidavit disclosing his prior
civil actions was deficient because it did not include all the information required
under R.C. 2969.25(A). Id. at ¶ 12. We went on to consider whether the existence
of an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law precluded Neguse’s
prohibition claim. Id. at ¶ 15-18. In analyzing that issue, we cited three court of
appeals’ decisions describing claims Neguse had asserted in earlier litigation. Id.
at ¶ 17. We stated that it was appropriate to consider the earlier cases because
“[w]hen entertaining a motion to dismiss a writ complaint, a court may take notice
of the docket and record in a closely related case to determine whether the current
complaint states a claim for relief.” In that case, we took notice of the fact that
Neguse’s complaint misstated the record of his earlier postconviction proceedings
and we concluded that he had an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law
by appeal from a judgment denying his earlier petition for postconviction relief. Id.
at ¶ 17-19. We therefore affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals dismissing
Neguse’s prohibition complaint on those grounds. Id. at ¶ 20.
       {¶ 9} The facts of this case are distinguishable from those of Corrigan and
Neguse as this case was not decided on a motion to dismiss. Indeed, the opposing
party, Judge Shaw, was never served with Roush’s complaint or the notice of appeal
filed in this court and never appeared at any stage of the proceeding. Although
Evid.R. 201(C) authorizes a court to take judicial notice of adjudicative facts
“whether requested or not,” Evid.R. 201(E) provides, “A party is entitled upon
timely request to an opportunity to be heard as to the propriety of taking judicial
notice and the tenor of the matter noticed. In the absence of prior notification, the
request may be made after judicial notice has been taken.”

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                                January Term, 2023

        {¶ 10} Here, Roush was never given notice that the court of appeals would
consult another court’s docket to determine whether his affidavit complied with
R.C. 2969.25. Furthermore, the court of appeals’ reliance on information obtained
outside the record to sua sponte dismiss Roush’s complaint foreclosed any
opportunity he had for meaningful review of his request for a writ of mandamus.
Because the court of appeals failed to give Roush notice and an opportunity to be
heard on the propriety of the court’s taking judicial notice of his earlier federal
filing, we reverse its judgment and remand this cause to the court of appeals for
further proceedings.
                                    Conclusion
        {¶ 11} We sustain Roush’s first and second assignments of error, reverse
the judgment of the court of appeals, and remand this cause to that court for further
proceedings, which may include the issuance of an order to show cause why the
case should not be dismissed for Roush’s failure to comply with R.C. 2969.25.
Based on our resolution of these assignments of error, we conclude that Roush’s
remaining arguments are not ripe.
                                                                 Judgment reversed
                                                               and cause remanded.
        KENNEDY, C.J., and FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART, and DETERS,
JJ., concur.
        BRUNNER, J., dissents, with an opinion.
                               _________________
        BRUNNER, J., dissenting.
        {¶ 12} The majority concludes that a court must give the parties notice and
an opportunity to be heard before taking notice of facts contained in another court’s
docket and relying on those facts in sua sponte dismissing a complaint for failure
to comply with R.C. 2969.25. Majority opinion, ¶ 1. I respectfully argue that the
majority’s reasoning falls short as a basis for reversing the judgment of the Fifth

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                             SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

District Court of Appeals sua sponte dismissing appellant Shane Roush’s complaint
for a writ of mandamus. In my view, we are obliged to affirm the Fifth District’s
decision.
        {¶ 13} The majority relies on Evid.R. 201(E) in requiring that the court of
appeals give Roush notice and an opportunity to be heard. But Evid.R. 201 applies
“only [to] adjudicative facts[,] i.e., the facts of the case.” Evid.R. 201(A). Roush’s
federal filing of which the court of appeals took notice was not an adjudicative fact,
because it was not a fact involving the record to be considered by the appellate court
in adjudicating the habeas corpus claim. Therefore, I disagree with the majority’s
implication that the court of appeals may ultimately take formal judicial notice of
Roush’s federal filing. Even if the court of appeals affords Roush notice and an
opportunity to be heard, judicial notice of the federal filing would not be supported
by Evid.R. 201 and taking such notice would be improper.
        {¶ 14} This court has recognized that courts “may take notice” of the docket
of another case in the same court. See State ex rel. Neguse v. McIntosh, 161 Ohio
St.3d 125, 2020-Ohio-3533, 161 N.E.3d 571, ¶ 18. In Neguse, we did not refer to
Evid.R. 201 and we limited the practice to when a court is entertaining a motion to
dismiss and when the noticed docket is for a closely related case. Id. But neither
of these conditions exist in Roush’s case, which involves a sua sponte dismissal.
Here, the court of appeals was not entertaining a motion to dismiss. And although
the court noted that the federal filing was a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the
record before us contains nothing to suggest that the federal case is closely related
to this case. Thus, Neguse and Evid.R. 201 do not supply a basis for reversing the
Fifth District’s decision.
        {¶ 15} Further complicating our review is our prior implicit condoning of
the Fifth District’s apparent practice of investigating sources outside the record and
the pleadings to verify compliance with R.C. 2969.25(A).             In Robinson v.
McConahay, __ Ohio St.3d __, 2023-Ohio-498, __ N.E.3d __, ¶ 9, we affirmed the

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                                 January Term, 2023

Fifth District’s sua sponte dismissal of a habeas petition in part because the
petitioner had filed nine other civil actions in other appellate courts in the five years
preceding the filing at issue. In its judgment entry, the Fifth District specifically
referred to its own search of Westlaw, which revealed the other filings. I do not
believe that this practice adheres to the standard of objectivity a court should be
observing in reaching decisions on petitions such as the one filed by Roush.
        {¶ 16} We have held that noncompliance with R.C. 2969.25 is fatal and a
sufficient basis for the court of appeals to dismiss a habeas corpus petition upon a
respondent’s motion. See Westerfield v. Bracy, __ Ohio St.3d __, 2023-Ohio-499,
__ N.E.3d __, ¶ 10. But it is questionable whether the investigation into compliance
with R.C. 2969.25 should be initiated by a court. See Jud.Cond.R. 2.9(C) (“A judge
shall not investigate facts in a matter independently, and shall consider only the
evidence presented and any facts that may properly be judicially noticed”). At the
same time, it may be ultimately beneficial to a petitioner whose pleadings are
deficient to receive a swift dismissal in order to refile with a legally compliant
affidavit sooner. See State ex rel. Watkins v. Andrews, 142 Ohio St.3d 308, 2015-
Ohio-1100, 29 N.E.3d 967, ¶ 8 (noting that a dismissal for failure to comply with
R.C. 2969.25 is not a dismissal with prejudice).
        {¶ 17} Because the court of appeals cannot and should not take notice under
Evid.R. 201 of Roush’s prior federal filing, I would consider, based on the record
before us, the merits of Roush’s arguments in support of his mandamus claim. And
because those arguments are unavailing, I would affirm the court of appeals’
judgment, albeit on different grounds.

                                 _________________
        Shane Roush, pro se.
                                 _________________

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