Vill. of Newburgh Heights v. State

• Decision Date: 19 May 2022
• Docket Number: 2021-0247
• Citation: 168 Ohio St.3d 513,200 N.E.3d 189
• Parties: The Village of NEWBURGH HEIGHTS, et al., Appellees, v. The STATE of Ohio, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

168 Ohio St.3d 513

200 N.E.3d 189

The Village of NEWBURGH HEIGHTS, et al., Appellees,

v.The STATE of Ohio, Appellant.

No. 2021-0247

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted February 9, 2022

Decided May 19, 2022

Nicola, Gudbrandson & Cooper, L.L.C., Michael E. Cicero, and Luke McConville, Cleveland, for appellee village of Newburgh Heights.

Willa Hemmons, East Cleveland Director of Law, and Heather McCollough, Assistant Director of Law, for appellee city of East Cleveland.

Dave Yost, Attorney General, Benjamin M. Flowers, Solicitor General, Stephen P. Carney, Deputy Solicitor General, and Caitlyn Nestleroth Johnson and Iris Jin, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellants.

Frost Brown Todd, L.L.C., Philip K. Hartmann, Yazan S. Ashrawi, Columbus, and Zackary L. Stillings ; and Garry E. Hunter, Athens, urging affirmance for amici curiae Ohio Municipal League and Ohio Municipal Attorneys Association.

Barbara J. Doseck, Dayton Director of Law, and John C. Musto, Dayton, Deputy Director of Law, urging affirmance for amicus curiae city of Dayton.

Dale R. Emch, Toledo Director of Law, and Jeffrey B. Charles and John T. Madigan, Toledo, Assistant Law Directors, urging affirmance for amicus curiae city of Toledo.

Kennedy, J. {¶ 1} In this discretionary appeal from a judgment of the Eighth District Court of Appeals, we are asked to decide whether the Ohio Constitution's Home Rule Amendment, Article XVIII, Section 3, prohibits the General Assembly from enacting statutes that (1) reduce a municipality's share of the state's local-government fund by an amount equal to the fines collected based on citations arising from the use of traffic cameras and (2) require a municipality to pay an advance deposit of costs and fees when commencing a civil action to enforce a citation issued using an automated traffic-camera system.

{¶ 2} Effective July 3, 2019, R.C. 5747.502(B) requires municipalities to report to the tax commissioner by July 31 of each year the gross amount of fines collected from the use of traffic cameras during the preceding fiscal year. The tax commissioner then uses that information to reduce the municipality's share of local-government funds by the amount of the fines collected and reallocates the amount of the reduction to the transportation district in which the municipality is situated. R.C. 5747.502(A)(6) and (C). The parties call this reallocation of local-government funds the "spending setoff."

{¶ 3} Municipal and county courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all civil actions concerning traffic-law violations, including citations issued using traffic cameras. R.C. 1901.18(A)(14), 1907.02(C), and 1901.20(A)(1). And relevant here, R.C. 4511.099(A) requires municipalities filing a civil action to enforce citations issued using traffic cameras to pay an advance deposit to the court in which the citation is filed to cover the costs and fees of the action, unless the citation is for a violation that occurred in a school zone. The parties refer to this as the "deposit requirement."

{¶ 4} Appellees, the village of Newburgh Heights and the city of East Cleveland, each operate programs to enforce their traffic laws with cameras. Newburgh Heights filed this action for a declaratory judgment and for injunctive relief, arguing that the spending setoff and the deposit requirement infringe on its municipal-home-rule powers in violation of Article XVIII, Section 3 of the Ohio Constitution. East Cleveland intervened as a plaintiff. The trial court denied their requests for a preliminary injunction, but the court of appeals reversed, holding that the spending setoff and the deposit requirement unconstitutionally penalize municipalities for exercising their home-rule authority to enforce their traffic laws with cameras.

{¶ 5} In framing the Ohio Constitution, the people of this state conferred the spending power on the General Assembly. And with limited exceptions not relevant here, the Ohio Constitution does not require the General Assembly to appropriate any funds to municipalities, and it does not create a specific right for a municipality to receive local-government funds from the state. The General Assembly therefore has exclusive discretion to reduce the appropriation of local-government funds to a municipality in the amount that the municipality has collected in fines from citations issued based on the operation of traffic cameras.

{¶ 6} The municipalities’ argument that the deposit requirement violates the Home Rule Amendment fares no better. Article IV, Sections 1 and 15 grant the General Assembly the authority to establish statutory courts and to provide for their maintenance. R.C. 4511.099 falls within this exclusive grant of power, because it merely requires that municipalities that ask state courts to enforce citations issued using traffic cameras shoulder the costs that their litigation creates. We have long recognized that " ‘[t]he subject of costs is one entirely of statutory allowance and control.’ " Cave v. Conrad , 94 Ohio St.3d 299, 302, 762 N.E.2d 991 (2002), quoting State ex rel. Michaels v. Morse , 165 Ohio St. 599, 607, 138 N.E.2d 660 (1956).

{¶ 7} Neither the spending setoff nor the deposit requirement are unconstitutional. These statutes do not invade that power of local self-government that the people of Ohio conferred on municipalities in adopting the Home Rule Amendment. Rather, these provisions may be given effect without one negating or encroaching upon the others.

{¶ 8} Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the Eighth District Court of Appeals, and we remand this matter to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

{¶ 9} Newburgh Heights and East Cleveland each have enacted ordinances to enforce certain of their traffic laws with cameras. See generally Newburgh Heights Codified Ordinances Chapter 315; East Cleveland Municipal Code Section 313.011.

{¶ 10} R.C. 5747.502(B)(1) requires municipalities like Newburgh Heights and East Cleveland that use "traffic law photo-monitoring devices," R.C. 4511.092, to file annual reports with the tax commissioner disclosing the amount of fines collected during the preceding year from the use of traffic cameras.

R.C. 5747.502(C) then reduces the amount that the municipality would otherwise receive from the local-government fund by the amount of the fines that the municipality collected from enforcing citations issued using traffic cameras. Those funds are then reallocated to the transportation district of which the municipality is part. R.C. 5747.502(F).

{¶ 11} The General Assembly has granted municipal and county courts exclusive jurisdiction over any action concerning the violation of a municipal traffic ordinance. R.C. 1901.18(A)(14), 1907.02(C), and 1901.20(A)(1). In addition, it enacted the deposit requirement, providing that municipalities bringing civil actions to litigate citations arising from the use of traffic cameras must pay an advance deposit covering the costs and fees of the action unless the violation occurred in a school zone. R.C. 4511.099.

{¶ 12} Newburgh Heights brought this lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment and preliminary injunctive relief, alleging that the spending setoff, the grant of exclusive jurisdiction over traffic-camera cases to municipal and county courts, and the deposit requirement violate its home-rule authority. It claimed that the loss of local-government funds from its budget would compel the village to abandon its use of traffic cameras to the detriment of public safety.

{¶ 13} East Cleveland intervened and similarly alleged that the spending setoff, the grant of exclusive jurisdiction, and the deposit requirement violate the Home Rule Amendment.

{¶ 14} The municipalities moved for a preliminary injunction, and the trial court granted it in part and denied it in part. The court enjoined a statute not at issue here requiring a police officer to be present when traffic cameras are in use. However, it denied an injunction against the spending setoff, the grant of exclusive jurisdiction to municipal and county courts over actions litigating citations based on the use of traffic cameras, and the deposit requirement.

{¶ 15} The municipalities appealed. The Eighth District Court of Appeals denied the state's motion to dismiss for lack of a final, appealable order, and it affirmed the trial court's judgment in part and reversed in part. It upheld the trial court's decision to deny a preliminary injunction against the exclusive-jurisdiction provision. However, it reversed the trial court's denial of a preliminary injunction against the spending setoff and the deposit requirement. It held that both provisions constitute unconstitutional attempts to limit the legislative home-rule powers of municipalities.

{¶ 16} We accepted the state's appeal to review two propositions of law:

1. Because the General Assembly's discretionary spending power can be limited only by an express constitutional limit on the spending itself, not by objections to goals indirectly achieved by the spending, the Spending Setoff does not violate a city's home-rule power.

2. None of the Traffic Camera Law's provisions at issue, including the Spending Setoff and the Deposit Requirement, violate the Ohio Constitution's Home Rule Amendment.

See 162 Ohio St.3d 1437, 2021-Ohio-1399, 166 N.E.3d 1256.

II. LAW AND ANALYSIS

A. Constitutional Interpretation

{¶ 17} "The purpose of our written Constitution is to define and limit the powers of government and secure the rights of the people." Cleveland v. State , 157 Ohio St.3d 330, 2019-Ohio-3820, 136 N.E.3d 466, ¶ 16 (lead opinion). The Ohio Constitution's language controls as written unless it is changed by the people themselves through the amendment procedures established by Article XVI. The Ohio Constitution is the paramount law of this state, and we recognize that its framers chose its language carefully and deliberately, employed words in their natural sense, and intended what the...