Court Opinion

ID: 9477476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:24:29.403953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:53.873963
License: Public Domain

WELLFORD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I do not necessarily disagree with the reasoning expressed by Judge Jones on the merits, I doubt it is necessary for us to reach the constitutionality of the entire Ohio law under the circumstances. I believe all challenges to the statute raised by this case, save one, have been rendered *331moot. The Chernins and their tenants reached a settlement agreement authorizing release of the money deposited in escrow and dismissing claims for money damages. The tenants have moved. No real, live, active legal controversy between these private parties continues to exist. The defendant Clerk of the Cleveland Heights Municipal Court has paid out the funds held in escrow in accordance with § 5321.08 of the statute. (All the funds deposited were disbursed except one per cent charged as court costs under § 5321.08(D)). The only aspect of the statutory scheme, at issue in light of the developments after the suit was filed, then, relates to the one percent fee assessed as court costs. § 5321.08(D).
We should not reach out to judge the constitutionality of the Act except as to the one provision which remains at issue. A ruling on that one subsection would not bring the entire Act on landlord and tenant rights into question. Appellants’ 33 page brief mentions this provision only once, and almost in passing: “[t]he rent remains on deposit until the landlord takes affirmative action to secure its release — and then he is penalized because he must pay court costs and because he forfeits 1% of the escrow— regardless of the propriety of the escrow.”
In fact, § 5321.09(D) of the Ohio statutes plainly provides that if the court finds that the escrow procedure was improperly instituted by the tenant at fault, the tenant may be liable in damages and for costs. On the face of the statute then, as appellants have evidently ignored or overlooked, the landlord may recoup the one per cent costs provided in § 5321.08(D) under § 5321.09(D) if the tenant is at fault or acting in bad faith. I would find that this portion of the statutory scheme is not unconstitutional and that appellants have made no real effort to demonstrate otherwise. I would not go beyond this point to determine the constitutionality of the entire scheme because I believe in so doing we are rendering, in essence, an advisory opinion on constitutionality in a situation now moot.
This is not a situation capable of repetition and evading judicial review. See Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U.S. 147, 149, 96 S.Ct. 347, 348, 46 L.Ed.2d 350 (1975); Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U.S. 498, 515, 31 S.Ct. 279, 283, 55 L.Ed. 310 (1911). The landlords and tenants have voluntarily terminated their dispute and the tenants have moved from the premises and have agreed not to litigate further the underlying dispute between them. The action was not brought by the Chernins as a class action. See Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 399-401, 95 S.Ct. 553, 557-58, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975); cf. Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 333 n. 2, 92 S.Ct. 995, 998 n. 2, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972).