Daily Case Update Archive

As a service to our members, we monitor opinions issued from the Ohio Supreme Court, the Ohio State First District Court of Appeals, and the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.  You can read the latest summaries or archived summaries from 2005 , 2006 , 2007 , 2008 , 2009 , 2010 , 2011.

If you would like to receive a daily e-mail with same-day case updates, please join our Subscribers-Only discussion list.  Not a subscriber?  Join today!

December 15th, 2006

Ohio Supreme Court | Ohio First District | U.S. 6th Circuit - Ohio | U.S. 6th Circuit - Other States
 

TOPICS:
- Civil Miscellaneous
- Evidence - Constitutional Law/Criminal
- Contracts - Procedure/Rules - Evid/Wit/Trial
- Arrest
- Procedure/Rules - Civil Miscellaneous
- Negligence - Contracts
- Sentencing - Armed Career Criminal Act
- Abuse of discretion standard
 

Ohio Supreme Court

 

No Opinions.
 

First District Court of Appeals

[Search Other Ohio Districts]
 

Convergys Corp. v. Tackman (Dec. 15, 2006) (2006-Ohio-6616)
-  http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/1/2006/2006-ohio-6616.pdf
-  The trial court erred as a matter of law in employing an actual-harm standard, instead of a threat-of-harm standard, as the basis for denying an employer's motion for a preliminary injunction to enforce the terms of a noncompete agreement with a former employee. Judgment REVERSED and Cause REMANDED.

State v. Battease (Dec. 15, 2006) (2006-Ohio-6617)
-  http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/1/2006/2006-ohio-6617.pdf
-  The trial court did not err in granting the defendant's motion to dismiss two charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, where the arresting officer had violated departmental regulations by immediately reusing a videotape made at the scene of the arrest and thus destroying the evidence of what had been recorded on the videotape:  The trial court was correct in concluding that the violation of the regulations constituted bad faith and in holding that the videotape would have been potentially useful to the defendant in rebutting the officer's contention that she had been belligerent and physically combative when she was arrested. Judgment AFFIRMED.

Great Seneca Financial v. Felty (Dec. 15, 2006) (2006-Ohio-6618)
-  http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/1/2006/2006-ohio-6618.pdf
-  To prevail in an action on an account, the plaintiff must establish the existence of an account in the name of the party charged, as well as (1) a beginning balance of zero, or a sum that can qualify as an account stated, or some other provable sum; (2) listed items, or an item, dated and identifiable by number or otherwise, representing charges, or debits, and credits; and (3) summarization by means of a running or developing balance, or an arrangement of beginning balance and items that permits the calculation of the amount claimed to be due.  (Brown v. Columbus Stamping & Mfg. Co. [1967], 9 Ohio App.2d 123, 223 N.E.2d 373, followed.) In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, a court may consider only those items that would be "admissible into evidence":  Documents submitted without an accompanying affidavit were not "admissible into evidence" and therefore should not have been considered by the trial court. Business records created by an entity other than the party offering them are admissible, provided that there are sufficient indications of trustworthiness and that all the other Evid.R. 803(6) requirements are met. Where a beginning balance on a credit-card account is not substantiated by an itemization of the credits and debits leading to that balance, a genuine issue of material fact remains as to the balance due on the account. Judgment REVERSED and Cause REMANDED.

State v. Blair (Dec. 15, 2006) (2006-Ohio-6619)
-  http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/1/2006/2006-ohio-6619.pdf
-  In a prosecution for driving under the influence of alcohol, the trial court did not err in overruling a motion to suppress where the pivotal issue was when the defendant's arrest had actually occurred after she had been involved in an accident on an interstate highway: The court properly concluded that there was no arrest until after the police had administered field sobriety tests to the defendant; before that time, the defendant was appropriately detained in her own car and in the back of a police cruiser, and then appropriately transported across the highway, so that the police could take necessary action to secure the accident scene and to ensure their own safety, as well as the safety of the defendant and other motorists. Judgment AFFIRMED.

Horine v. Vineyard Community Church (Dec. 15, 2006) (2006-Ohio-6620)
-  http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/1/2006/2006-ohio-6620.pdf
-  When evidentiary materials are submitted to the trail court in connection with a Civ.R. 12(B)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, the court may, in making its ruling, properly consider and use those materials without converting the motion into one for summary judgment.  Where the trial court's determination that the plaintiffs were ministers was supported by competent, credible evidence, the court properly concluded that the ministerial exception stripped it of subject-matter jurisdiction to consider their claims that the church that had employee them had violation state employment laws.  Judgment AFFIRMED.

Trustcorp. Mtge. Group v. Zajac (Dec. 15, 2006) (2006-Ohio-6621)
-  http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/1/2006/2006-ohio-6621.pdf
-  The trial court did not err in granting summary judgment to appraisers on a mortgage lender's claim for negligent misrepresentation, where the appraisers, in the absence of privity of contract, did not owe the lender a duty of care with regard to purely economic losses allegedly resulting from reliance on their appraisals of real property.  [But, see, DISSENT:  a claim of negligent misrepresentation under Restatement of the Law 2d, Torts (1977), Section 552, should lie against an appraiser whose materially inaccurate and negligent representations concerning a property's market value are detrimentally relied upon by a foreseeable downstream lender; in a climate where property flipping and mortgage fraud are rampant, an appraiser should not be permitted to avoid liability due to the absence of privity of contract.] Judgment AFFIRMED.

Flynn v. Green Twp. Bd. of Trustees (Dec. 15, 2006) (2006-Ohio-6622)
-  http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/1/2006/2006-ohio-6622.pdf
-  The trial court properly granted summary judgment in the defendant's favor on a products-liability claim where suit was filed in 2005, after the two-year limitations period had expired:  The plaintiff was injured in 2002, and her claim accrued at that time and was not subject to the discovery rule, because the injury was not latent (it manifested itself immediately).
 

U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals:  Ohio Cases

 

USA v. Sanders (Dec. 15, 2006) (Appeal from N.D. Ohio)
-  http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/06a0460p-06.pdf
-  On remand for resentencing after United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), the district court held that Defendant-Appellant William Sanders was subject to the sentencing provisions of the Armed Career Criminal Act (the "ACCA"), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment of 180 months to be followed by three years of supervised release. Sanders now challenges two of the predicate violent felonies on which the district court based its sentencing. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
 

U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals: Other States Cases

 

Doane Pet Care Co v. N Amer Pet Prod (Dec. 15, 2006) (Appeal from M.D. Tenn.)
-  http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/06a0459p-06.pdf
-  Although this case began as a diversity case for specific performance brought by Doane Pet Care Co., this is now a case for an accounting in which the parties sought, and the trial court granted, a jury trial as to the value of Michael Thompson's interest in a company in which he had a 25% interest. In a series of rulings, the District Court held inadmissible all of the testimony of Thompson's accounting expert and then dismissed his case for lack of admissible accounting evidence. We regard these evidentiary rulings as clear error under an abuse of discretion standard and remand the case for a new trial on the issue of the value of Thompson's interest. We must, therefore, also reverse the Court's ruling under the fee-shifting provision of the contract between the parties because the outcome of the case remains unsettled.