Court Opinion

ID: 9751694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:50:34.573442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:57.444338
License: Public Domain

DEGENARO, J., dissenting.
The relator has asked us to grant a writ of prohibition 1) preventing the respondent from conducting a contempt hearing and 2) prohibiting the respondent from issuing further orders like the one the relator is currently accused of violating. The majority grants both forms of relief, but I must respectfully dissent from its decision. We cannot prohibit the respondent from exercising her lawful contempt powers, even if we believe that it is unlikely that the respondent will be able to find the relator in contempt. If the relator believed the respondent did not have the authority to issue the order in question, then he should have sought a writ of prohibition before he decided not to follow that order. Furthermore, we do not have jurisdiction to prohibit the respondent from making similar orders in future cases. Accordingly, we should grant summary judgment to the respondent and deny the relator’s writ of prohibition.
In this case, the relator is accused of failing to follow one of the respondent’s orders and the respondent seeks to hold the relator in contempt for this violation. A court’s power to enforce its own orders is one of its most basic powers since it is necessary to the exercise of the judicial function. State ex rel. Turner, v. Albin (1928), 118 Ohio St. 527, 161 N.E. 792, paragraph one of the syllabus. A court’s contempt powers allow it to punish “conduct which brings the administration of justice into disrespect, or which tends to embarrass, impede or obstruct a court in the performance of its functions.” Windham Bank v. Tomaszczyk (1971), 27 Ohio St.2d 55, 271 N.E.2d 815, paragraph one of the syllabus. Although a municipal court is a creature of statute, R.C. 1901.13(A)(1) gives it the authority to enforce its orders through contempt proceedings. See State ex rel. Johnson v. County Court of Perry County (1986), 25 Ohio St.3d 53, 54, 495 N.E.2d 16.
Ohio courts have long recognized the collateral bar rule, which forces people to obey court orders until the court issuing the order or a reviewing court says otherwise. See State ex rel. Beil v. Dota (1958), 168 Ohio St. 315, 319, 154 N.E.2d 634; Petition for Green (1961), 172 Ohio St. 269, 274, 175 N.E.2d 59; Natl. Equity Title Agency, Inc. v. Rivera, 147 Ohio App.3d 246, 770 N.E.2d 76, 2001-Ohio-7095; In re Contempt of Court of White (1978), 60 Ohio App.2d 62, 64-65, 395 N.E.2d 499; Ohio Contractors Ass’n v. Local 894 of Intern. Hod Carriers’, Bldg. and C.L. Union of America (1959), 108 Ohio App. 395, 400, 162 N.E.2d 155. In other words, a person is not entitled to violate a court order because the party believes it was beyond the court’s authority to issue. Collins v. Collins (2000), 139 Ohio App.3d 900, 908, 746 N.E.2d 201. This is especially true when the trial court seeks to hold someone in criminal contempt. Citicasters Co. v. Stop 26 Riverbend, Inc., 7th Dist. No. 01 CA 99, 2002-0hio-5197, at ¶ 41-53, 2002 WL 31163655, at *8-10. The only excep*704tion to this rule is when the order at issue is transparently invalid or only has a frivolous pretense to validity. Rivera at ¶ 2, citing Walker v. Birmingham (1967), 388 U.S. 307, 315, 87 S.Ct. 1824, 18 L.Ed.2d 1210.
In this case, the respondent’s order was neither transparently invalid nor only had a frivolous pretense to validity. The respondent clearly had the authority to sentence Tomlin after he was convicted for domestic violence, a misdemeanor offense, in the respondent’s court. R.C. 1901.20(A)(1); 2919.25. The respondent did not obviously lack the authority to order the Sheriff not to release Tomlin early, as discussed below. Accordingly, the relator was bound to follow the respondent’s order and the respondent has the power to hold a contempt hearing if it believes the relator did not comply with its order.
The issues the majority raises in its opinion are all defenses to a contempt action, not reasons why the trial court lacks authority to enforce its own orders. For example, the majority noted the relator’s claim that Tomlin was furloughed, rather than released, and that this did not violate the order. Whether an order has been violated is one of the central issues to be resolved in any contempt proceeding. We cannot prevent the trial court from holding a contempt hearing merely because we suspect that it cannot factually find the relator in contempt.
Likewise, the fact that the court of common pleas has issued a contradictory order does not divest the respondent of its ability to enforce its own order. Instead, this is good cause for not obeying the respondent’s order which should be raised at a show cause hearing. There are no Ohio cases dealing with this issue directly but as a Kentucky court long ago explained in a case involving similar circumstances, when two courts have issued contradictory orders, someone “should not be held in contempt in acting in disobedience to either of the courts. The error, if any, was not upon the part of the [person subject to the competing orders].” Boone v. Riddle (Ky.App.1905), 86 S.W. 978, 979. Thus, if the relator was acting in accordance with an order from the court of common pleas, then he should raise this as a defense within the contempt proceeding before the municipal court.
If the relator wished to challenge the validity of the trial court’s order without subjecting himself to the possibility that he might be held in contempt, then he should have sought a writ of prohibition before he chose to disobey the respondent’s order. We cannot eviscerate the respondent’s ability to enforce its orders in an effort to excuse the relator’s delay in protecting his rights.
Finally, we cannot grant relator’s request that we prohibit the respondent from issuing any “do not release” orders in the future. A writ of prohibition only prohibits a court from proceeding where there is a case pending before that particular court and we cannot issue a writ of prohibition to prevent some future action that a court is not about to take. Commercial Sav. Bank v. Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas (1988), 35 Ohio St.3d 192, 194, 519 N.E.2d 647. We cannot enjoin the respondent from issuing this kind of order in the future because we do not have original jurisdiction in injunction. Id.
As stated above, relator has asked for two forms of relief and we cannot grant either of those. We cannot prohibit the respondent from holding a contempt hearing, even if we suspect that it cannot hold the relator in contempt for various fact-based reasons, and we cannot enjoin it from entering a particular type of order in the future. If the relator believes that the *705respondent has issued an order which' it does not have the authority to issue, then he should seek a writ of prohibition before he decides to ignore and violate the order. By seeking prohibition after he has violated the order, the relator’s actions are too little, too late.
For these reasons, we should grant respondent’s motion for summary judgment. Relator is not entitled to the writ of prohibition which he seeks.
/s/ Mary DeGenaro
MARY DeGENARO, JUDGE
APPENDIX 2
Court sides with sheriff
Date May 23, 2006

City and county officials will discuss a plan today to share county jail space.

By DEBORA SHAULIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals has ruled that municipal courts and common pleas courts aren’t equals when it comes to managing the county jail and its inmates.
In a 2-1 opinion issued Monday, appellate judges granted a writ of prohibition as sought by Mahoning County Sheriff Randall A. Wellington against Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly of Youngstown Municipal Court.
That means Judge Kobly cannot order Wellington to attend a show-cause hearing that could have led to a contempt-of-court charge.
Ronald Tomlin of Youngstown, whom Judge Kobly sentenced last November to seven days in county jail for misdemeanor domestic violence, received emergency release despite the judge’s order to the contrary. Wellington said the part of the judge’s journal entry with her handwritten “do not release” instructions was not received by jail personnel.
The case also concerned the county’s emergency release mechanism, which common pleas court judges devised to limit jail population. A federal judge declared the jail to be unconstitutional in March 2005 because of overcrowding and staffing shortages.
How this is done
Inmates who qualify, depending on the seriousness of their crimes, either serve time when jail space is available or have their sentences converted or suspended by judges.
Judge Kobly had argued that the release mechanism was modifying her sentence orders.
Appellate judges Gene Donofrio and Joseph Vukovich ruled otherwise. “The release mechanism ordered by the common pleas court provides a logical mechanism to furlough inmates until such time as there is room for them to serve the remainder of their sentences and to bring the jail into constitutional compliance,” Judge Donofrio wrote in the majority opinion.
Furthermore, the General Assembly long ago gave common pleas courts exclusive authority over jail operations. There is “no such statutory or case law that gives a municipal court such specific identical authority,” Judge Donofrio wrote.
In her dissenting opinion, Judge Mary DeGenaro said the appellate court shouldn’t stop Judge Kobly “from exercising her lawful contempt powers, even if we believe that it is unlikely that [she] will be able to find [Wellington] in contempt.”
County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, who filed court motions on Wellington’s behalf, said he wasn’t surprised that the appeals court ruled in the county’s favor.
*706“We are weighing our options at the moment,” said Atty. Anthony J. Farris, the city’s chief assistant prosecutor. The city could file an appeal with Ohio Supreme Court or seek a writ of prohibition regarding the emergency release mechanism, he said.
Neither path will need to be taken if the city and county can come to terms on jail bed allocations. That’s supposed to be the topic of a meeting today between county officials and Mayor Jay Williams.
The county Criminal Justice Working Group has proposed reserving 96 beds for city prisoners at a rate of $25 per day, plus meals and medical expenses, and giving municipal judges the right to create their own release mechanism over the city’s portion of the jail. The city says it will pay for defendants who are charged with breaking municipal ordinances but not state statutes.
“We would really like to work this out with the city,” Gains said.
“We’ve never been adverse to an agreement,” Farris said. “It’s the terms that are at issue.” Ssh
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*707APPENDIX 3
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*708APPENDIX 4
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