State ex rel. Gen. Motors v. Indus. Comm.

• Decision Date: 09 April 2008
• Docket Number: No. 2007-0210.,2007-0210.
• Citation: 117 Ohio St.3d 480,884 N.E.2d 1075,2008 Ohio 1593
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio ex rel. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Appellee, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION of Ohio et al., Appellants.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

884 N.E.2d 1075

117 Ohio St.3d 480

2008-Ohio-1593

The STATE of Ohio ex rel. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Appellee, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION of Ohio et al., Appellants.

No. 2007-0210.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted January 22, 2008.

Decided April 9, 2008.

Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, L.L.P., Bradley K. Sinnott, Columbus, and F. Daniel Balmert, Akron, for appellee.

Marc Dann, Attorney General, William P. Marshall, Solicitor General, Elise W. Porter, Deputy Solicitor, and Stephen D. Plymale, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant Industrial Commission of Ohio.

Stephen E. Mindzak Law Offices, L.L.C., and Stephen E. Mindzak, Columbus, for appellant Chester Stephan.

O'CONNOR, J.

{¶ 1} The primary question before us today is whether an action in mandamus by appellee General Motors Corporation ("GMC") was the proper vehicle by which to seek relief from the order of appellant Industrial Commission that under R.C. 4123.56, GMC could not claim an offset for taxes withheld on appellant Chester Stephan's behalf. For the reasons that follow, we hold that mandamus was the proper course of action for this case.

Relevant Background

{¶ 2} On October 5, 1998, Stephan, a GMC employee, suffered a herniated disc in the performance of his duties. Following the injury, Stephan filed a workers' compensation claim. While Stephan's claim was pending, GMC paid him $7,091.30 through its wage-replacement insurance program. In making those payments, GMC withheld a portion of each payment and sent the withholdings to federal and state taxing authorities.

{¶ 3} In February 1999, after concluding its investigation of the incident, GMC informed the commission that it would recognize Stephan's injury as work-related. Stephan was thus entitled to $9,119.71 in temporary total disability ("TTD") payments for the time he missed. GMC paid Stephan the difference between the TTD benefits and the amount it had already paid him through the wage-replacement program.

{¶ 4} Stephan, however, believed that he was owed additional compensation because GMC's payment did not include the taxes GMC previously withheld. A district hearing officer agreed with Stephan that he was entitled to a net amount of $9,119.71. GMC appealed, and a staff hearing officer determined that GMC had paid the correct amount and vacated the order. In turn, Stephan appealed to the commission, which vacated the order of the staff hearing officer and ordered that GMC could not claim an offset for the withheld taxes.

{¶ 5} GMC then filed a complaint in mandamus in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, seeking an order directing the commission to credit GMC for the tax withholdings in calculating the amount Stephan was owed. After some procedural oddities in the trial court, and a remand from the Tenth District Court of Appeals, State ex rel. Gen. Motors Corp. v. Indus. Comm., 159 Ohio App.3d 644, 2005-Ohio-356, 825 N.E.2d 167, the trial court denied GMC's requested writ.

{¶ 6} On GMC's appeal, the court of appeals initially resolved the threshold question of whether GMC had properly brought the case in mandamus. The appellate court concluded that because GMC did not have an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law, "mandamus was the proper remedy to test the validity of the commission order in the trial court." State ex rel. Gen. Motors Corp. v. Indus. Comm., 10th Dist No. 06AP-373, 2006-Ohio-6786, 2006 WL 3743076, ¶ 14. The appellate court, therefore, reversed the trial court's judgment and remanded the case with "instructions to issue the requested writ of mandamus ordering the Industrial Commission to set off the full amount paid by [GMC] under the nonoccupational sickness and accident insurance program, including those amounts withheld for the employee's taxes." Id. at ¶ 27.

{¶ 7} The commission and Stephan filed notices of appeal with this court, and we granted discretionary jurisdiction.

Analysis

{¶ 8} The first question is whether GMC's complaint for a writ of mandamus was the proper avenue through which to seek relief.¹

{¶ 9} In order to be entitled to a writ of mandamus, GMC must establish a clear legal right to the requested relief, a clear legal duty on the part of the commission to provide the relief, and the lack of an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of the law. State ex rel. MetroHealth Med. Ctr. v. Sutula, 110 Ohio St.3d 201, 2006-Ohio-4249, 852 N.E.2d 722, ¶ 8. A mandamus action is thus appropriate where there is a legal basis to compel a public entity to perform its duties under the law.² State ex rel. Levin v. Schremp (1995), 73 Ohio St.3d 733, 735, 654 N.E.2d 1258. Likewise, a writ of mandamus may lie if the public entity has abused its discretion in carrying out its duties. State ex rel. Potts v. Comm on Continuing Legal Edn. (2001), 93 Ohio St.3d 452, 457, 755 N.E.2d 886. In addition, if the public entity has misinterpreted a statute, a writ of mandamus may be an available remedy. State ex rel. Gassmann v. Indus. Comm. (1975), 41 Ohio St.2d 64, 65, 70 O.O.2d 157, 322 N.E.2d 660 ("A mandatory writ may issue against the Industrial Commission if the commission has incorrectly interpreted Ohio law"); Sullivan v. State ex rel. O'Connor (1932), 125 Ohio St. 387, 392, 181 N.E. 805 (flagrant misinterpretation of statute by a county board of elections is reviewable through an action in mandamus).

{¶ 10} Conversely, when a party files an action for declaratory judgment pursuant to R.C. 2721.02, the party seeks merely a declaration of its "rights, status, and other legal relations whether or not further relief is or could be claimed." Standing alone, a declaratory judgment cannot compel a government official to perform a specific legal duty. State ex rel. Ohio Civ. Serv. Emps. Assn., AFSCME, Local 11, AFL-CIO v. State Emp. Relations Bd., 104 Ohio St.3d 122, 2004-Ohio-6363, 818 N.E.2d 688, ¶ 16, quoting 1 Antieau, The Practice of Extraordinary Remedies (1987) 300, Section 2.06 ("`A declaratory action, which merely announces the existence of a duty to be performed, has generally not been deemed as adequate as the writ of mandamus, which compels performance'"). Thus, a declaratory judgment must be accompanied with injunctive relief in the form of a mandatory injunction in order to successfully compel the government to act. State ex rel Fenske v. McGovern (1984), 11 Ohio St.3d 129, 131, 11 OBR 426, 464 N.E.2d 525.

{¶ 11} Because a complaint that seeks to prevent, rather than compel, an action is not proper for mandamus, we must ascertain the substance of GMC's complaint and its aims. State ex rel Stamps v. Montgomery Cty. Automatic Data Processing Bd. (1989), 42 Ohio St.3d 164, 166, 538 N.E.2d 105. GMC seeks a writ directing the commission to vacate its order and to properly credit GMC for all the sums it has paid for and on behalf of Stephan, in the form of the withheld taxes, in calculating the amount still owed to Stephan. The complaint, therefore, seeks to compel the commission to take an affirmative action.

{¶ 12} On the other hand, the commission urges us to find that GMC should have filed a declaratory-judgment action coupled with a request for a prohibitory injunction. This position reflects a misunderstanding of the distinction between prohibitory and mandatory injunctions. A prohibitory injunction preserves the status quo by enjoining a defendant from performing the challenged acts in the future. State ex rel. Leslie v. Ohio Hous. Fin. Agency, 105 Ohio St.3d 261, 2005-Ohio-1508, 824 N.E.2d 990, ¶ 50. A mandatory injunction, however, is an extraordinary remedy that compels the defendant to restore a party's rights through an affirmative action. Gratz v. Lake Erie & W. RR. Co. (1907), 76 Ohio St. 230, 233, 81 N.E. 239. The distinction between these two categories of injunctive relief can best be summed up as follows: a prohibitory injunction is used to prevent a future injury, but a mandatory injunction is used to remedy past injuries.

{¶ 13} R.C. 4123.56(A) provides for "[o]ffset of the compensation * * * only upon the prior order of the bureau or industrial commission or agreement of the claimant." Because the commission already has determined that the amount of Stephan's workers' compensation benefits would not be offset by the tax withholdings made by GMC, a declaratory judgment in and of itself is insufficient to provide adequate relief to GMC. Likewise, a prohibitory injunction would be useless, as the harm suffered by GMC is a past injury, rather than future conduct that GMC seeks to enjoin.

{¶ 14} Therefore, the only way a declaratory-judgment action could provide GMC a remedy is if GMC also sought a mandatory injunction that compelled the commission to vacate the order and enter a new order pursuant to R.C. 4123.56 crediting GMC with the tax withholdings. Cf. State ex rel. Fenske, 11 Ohio...