State ex rel. Casey v. Brown
| Docket Number | 2022-1178 |
| Decision Date | 06 July 2023 |
| Citation | 2023 Ohio 2264 |
| Parties | The State ex rel. Casey et al., Appellants, v. Brown, Mayor, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Submitted March 21, 2023
Appeal from the Court of Appeals for Mahoning County, No. 22 MA 0003, 2022-Ohio-2843.
Law Offices of S. David Worhatch and S. David Worhatch, for appellants.
Jeff Limbian, Youngstown Law Director, and Daniel P. Dascenzo Deputy Director, for appellees.
{¶ 1} This is a direct appeal from a judgment of the Seventh District Court of Appeals dismissing a complaint for a writ of mandamus filed by appellant John M. Casey against appellees, Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, Youngstown Fire Chief Barry Finley, and Youngstown Finance Director Kyle Miasek (collectively, "the officials"). Casey sought an order directing the officials to promote him to the rank of battalion chief in the Youngstown Fire Department and to award him associated compensation and employment benefits accruing from the promotion. Casey also sought awards of attorney fees and costs. The court of appeals dismissed the complaint, reasoning that Casey had an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law. We affirm.
{¶ 2} Casey is a captain in the city's fire department and a member of the Youngstown Professional Fire Fighters Local 312 ("union"). The city and the union are signatories to a collective-bargaining agreement ("CBA") that governs Casey's employment.
{¶ 3} Part of the background underlying Casey's complaint relates to the city's handling of three battalion-chief positions. In October 2019, the State Employment Relations Board ("SERB") found that there was probable cause to support an unfair-labor-practice charge brought by the union regarding the city's threatened elimination of the positions. The city later eliminated the positions.
{¶ 4} In January 2020, the Mahoning County Court of Common Pleas issued an order granting SERB's request for an injunction to prevent the city from eliminating the positions while SERB investigated the charge. In June 2020, the trial court held the city in contempt for violating the terms of the injunction and, as a means of purging the contempt, ordered the city to promote a qualified candidate to fill a vacant battalion-chief position. The city appealed the contempt order, and the court of appeals affirmed. State Emp. Relations Bd. v. Youngstown, 7th Dist. Mahoning No. 20 MA 0060, 2021-Ohio-4552 ("Youngstown I ").
{¶ 5} Meanwhile, SERB carried on with its investigation and, in June 2020, determined that the city had committed an unfair labor practice by eliminating the three positions. SERB ordered the city to, among other things, reconstitute the abolished positions. The city appealed SERB's order to the trial court, which affirmed. On appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment. Youngstown v. State Emp. Relations Bd, 2021-Ohio-4591, 182 N.E.3d 436 ("Youngstown II ").
{¶ 6} In June 2021, a battalion-chief vacancy arose upon an individual's retirement. Casey thereafter sat for a promotional examination and finished, according to Casey, "on the top of the eligibility list." But when Casey asked Fire Chief Barry Finley about a "timetable for promotion," the chief told Casey that the city did not intend to promote anyone to fill the vacancy.
{¶ 7} In October 2021, Casey and the union filed a grievance against the city pursuant to "Step 2" of the CBA, which directs an aggrieved employee to submit a written grievance to the fire chief or his authorized representative. Casey's grievance asserted that the city had violated Article 13, Section 1 of the CBA, which provides that "[a]fter the list has been certified to the appointing authority, the employee ranking highest on the applicable list shall be appointed within fourteen (14) days." Unsatisfied with the outcome at Step 2, Casey advanced his grievance pursuant to "Step 3" of the CBA, which requires the mayor's designee to either grant the employee's requested remedy, deny the grievance, or hold a hearing within 14 days. If a hearing is held, the CBA requires that the grievance be decided within ten days after the hearing.
{¶ 8} During the early stages of the Step 3 proceedings, the court of appeals had not yet issued its decisions in Youngstown I and Youngstown II. Thus, on December 10, 2021, the mayor's designee issued a preliminary decision explaining that he was holding a decision on Casey's grievance in abeyance pending the outcomes of those cases. The court of appeals decided Youngstown I and Youngstown II three days later.
{¶ 9} On January 5, 2022, Casey asked the union president and other officials whether they planned to advance his grievance to arbitration under "Step 4" of the CB A given that the court of appeals in Youngstown II had upheld the trial court's affirmance of SERB's order directing the city to reconstitute the three battalion-chief positions. The union president advised Casey that the union could not commit to advancing his grievance to arbitration, because the union had already committed to prosecuting the grievance of another union member who contended that she had been wrongly denied an opportunity to sit for the promotional examination. The union president thus recommended that Casey hire private counsel to advance his interests.
{¶ 10} On January 11, 2022, the mayor's designee issued a "supplemental decision." Although the designee noted that he had received copies of the decisions in Youngstown I and Youngstown II, he concluded that he still could not proceed to a determination on the merits, because the arbitrator had not yet issued a decision in the matter involving the other union member. In the designee's view, "the issues under review in [that] arbitration are such that an award involving those issues could potentially have a direct and substantive effect on the ability of the City to grant the requested remedy in John Casey's grievance." The designee thus held his decision in further abeyance pending the outcome of the other union member's arbitration proceeding. Later that month, the arbitrator ordered the city to allow the other union member to sit for the promotional examination after determining that she should have been allowed to take it.
{¶ 11} In February 2022, the mayor's designee denied Casey's grievance, and the union thereafter advised Casey that it would not seek arbitration of the designee's decision pursuant to Step 4 of the CBA.
{¶ 12} In January 2022, Casey filed a complaint (later amended in March 2022) in the court of appeals requesting a writ of mandamus ordering the officials to promote him to battalion chief and remit to him all additional compensation and employment benefits that would have accrued to him had he been timely promoted to battalion chief. Casey alleged that such compensation and benefits began to accrue as of October 19, 2021, which is two weeks after the civil-service commission mailed the results of the promotional examination that Casey took. Casey named the city as an additional relator based on R.C. 733.59, which authorizes a taxpayer to bring suit "in his own name, on behalf of the municipal corporation." Casey also sought awards of attorney fees and costs.
{¶ 13} The court of appeals granted the officials' motion to dismiss under the standard a court would apply in reviewing a Civ.R. 12(B)(6) motion, reasoning that mandamus did not lie, because Casey had an adequate remedy at law. 2022-Ohio-2843, ¶ 1, 17, 33. In support of this conclusion, the court drew on R.C. 4117.10(A), explaining that "if an agreement between a public employer and an exclusive representative governing the wages, hours, and terms and conditions of public employment 'provides for a final and binding arbitration of grievances, public employers, employees, and employee organizations are subject solely to that grievance procedure.'" 2022-Ohio-2843 at ¶ 19, quoting R.C. 4117.10(A). Because the city and the union had entered into an agreement culminating in final and binding arbitration, the court held, Casey's exclusive remedy lay in the procedures prescribed by the CBA. Id. at ¶ 21. The fact that Casey's invocation of that remedy was unsuccessful, the court added, did not render it inadequate. Id. at ¶ 27. Although Casey did not name the union as a respondent in his complaint, the court also observed that Casey had an additional adequate remedy available to him by way of bringing an unfair-labor-practice charge with SERB against the union under R.C. 4117.11(B)(6). Id. at ¶ 32.
{¶ 14} Casey then filed this appeal. During the appeal's pendency, Casey filed a motion to strike aspects of the officials' brief and a motion for oral argument.
{¶ 15} This court reviews de novo a court of appeals' judgment dismissing a mandamus complaint under Civ.R. 12(B)(6). State ex rel. A.N. v. Cuyahoga Cty. Prosecutor's Office, 165 Ohio St.3d 71, 2021-Ohio-2071, 175 N.E.3d 539, ¶ 8. Dismissal is justified "if, after presuming all factual allegations in the complaint to be true and drawing all reasonable inferences in the relator's favor, it appears beyond doubt that he can prove no set of facts entitling him to a writ of mandamus." Id. To be entitled to a writ of mandamus, Casey must establish a clear legal right to the requested relief, a clear legal duty on the part of one or more of the officials to provide it, and the lack of an adequate legal remedy in the ordinary course of the law. Id. at ¶ 9.
{¶ 16} Casey's principal argument on appeal is that the court of appeals erred in determining that the CBA (and the effect a court must give it under R.C. Chapter 4117) provided him...
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