Wolf v. City of Columbus

• Decision Date: 12 November 1954
• Citation: 98 Ohio App. 333,129 N.E.2d 309
• Parties: , 57 O.O. 358 WOLF, Appellee, v. CITY OF COLUMBUS et al., Appellants.
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

Page 333

98 Ohio App. 333

129 N.E.2d 309, 57 O.O. 358

WOLF, Appellee, v. CITY OF COLUMBUS et al., Appellants.

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Franklin County.

Nov. 12, 1954.

Syllabus by the Court.

In their public capacity, municipal corporations function as agents or instrumentalities of the state government and therefore constitute a political subdivision; and as such come within the provision of Section 2505.12, Revised Code, which exempts 'any political subdivision' of the state from the giving of an appeal bond.

Chalmers P. Wylie, City Atty., and J. Russell Leach, Columbus, for appellants.

W. B. McLeskey and C. W. McLeskey, Columbus, for appellee.

MILLER, Judge.

This cause is here on a motion submitted by the plaintiff, appellee herein, seeking an order dismissing the appeal on questions of law and fact for the reason that no appeal bond has been filed as required by Section 2505.06, Revised Code. It is urged by the defendants that the city of Columbus, one of the defendants, is a political subdivision, that the other two defendants are officers of a political subdivision, and that an appeal bond may not be required, citing Section 2505.12, Revised Code, which provides that an appeal bond shall not be required from:

'(B) The state and any political subdivision thereof authorized to sue and be sued;

'(C) Any public officer of the state or of any of its political subdivisions suing or sued solely in his representative capacity as such officer.'

The plaintiff urges however that the city of Columbus is not a 'political subdivision' and therefore does not come within the provisions of the cited section of the Code. We are referred to the case of City of Steubenville v. Reiner, 7 Ohio Law Abst. 324, which sustains his contention, but this case was decided on December 21, 1928, prior to the amendment of the section which added to the exemption the words 'political subdivision.' The statute at the time of the Reiner case exempted from the giving of bond only 'the state of Ohio or an officer thereof.' We find no definition of the term in our statutes relating to appeals, but as applied to the 'Uniform Bond Law' a 'subdivision' includes a 'municipal corporation', Section 133.01, Revised Code, and as applied to 'elections' the term 'political subdivision' includes 'cities.' While these definitions have application only to laws in the chapters wherein they are found, they are helpful in determining what the legislative body understood the terms to ordinarily mean. We find many reported decisions which hold that municipal corporations are instrumentalities or agents of the state for a local administration and enforcement of sovereign power and for conducting the affairs of government.

In City of Akron v. Butler, 108 Ohio St. 122, at page 124, 140 N.E. 324, at page 325, it is said:

'This court has always, as indeed have courts generally, recognized the theory that municipalities have dual powers, the one wherein they exercise the power delegated by the sovereign to preserve the peace and to protect persons and property, and the other where they exercise power, proprietary in its nature, and which relates to the development of the municipality as distinguished from the commonwealth.'

Again, in the case of City of Wooster v. Arbenz, ...