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91 Ohio St. 3d 182

Stevens v. Ackman

Ohio Supreme Court

Decided March 28, 2001

Ohio Supreme Court · decided 2001-03-28

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“In accordance with these precedents, it is apparent that R.C. 2744.02(C) continued forward as purportedly enacted in Am.Sub.H.B. No. 350, despite Middletown’s arguments based on Section 15(D), Article II. Clearly, the General Assembly did not intend to reenact R.C. 2744.02(C) in Am.Sub.H.B. No. 215. Therefore, that act neither reenacted nor enacted R.C. 2744.02(C). When this court in Sheward struck down Am.Sub.H.B. No. 350, it struck down the version of R.C. 2744.02(C) that Am.Sub.H.B. No. 350 attempted to enact, and R.C. 2744.02(C) remains invalid as a result of Sheward . For all the foregoing reasons, we hold that R.C. 2744.02(C), as purportedly enacted in Am.Sub.H.B. No. 350, is invalid. Furthermore, R.C. 2744.02(C) was neither enacted nor reenacted by Am.Sub.H.B. No. 215.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 182 Ohio App. 3d 1 - United Auto Workers, Local Union 1112 v. Brunner

Relies on State ex rel. Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers v. Sheward

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2001-03-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 89 later decisions — most recently July 2024 · most notably State v. Hodge (2010), State v. Muncie (2001)

1 federal appellate · 86 state decisions

660200120102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Lundberg Stratton, J.,

¶1concurring. I reluctantly concur with the determination in Part II C of the majority opinion that R.C. 2744.02(C) was neither enacted nor reenacted by 1997 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 215, because, based upon the format of the language of R.C. 2744.02 in H.B. 215, it was apparent that the General Assembly merely amended a section of the statute and did not enact or reenact a new law and repeal the old one. No one has disputed the General Assembly’s authority to determine when issues involving immunity may be appealed. Had the majority in State ex rel. Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers v. Sheward (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 451, 715 N.E.2d 1062, merely severed those sections in 1996 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 350 that violated the one-subject rule, I believe that R.C. 2744.02(C) would have remained a valid enactment.

¶2I did not agree with the majority in Shewardthat the bill in its entirety was unconstitutional. In particular, I expressed the opinion that even if certain provisions violated the one-subject rule of the Constitution, those offending provisions should be severed without striking the entire Act. Id. at 539, 715 N.E.2d at 1128 (Lundberg Stratton, J., dissenting). This case presents a perfect example of the chaos resulting from Sheward.

¶3The General Assembly clearly intended to provide a political subdivision or an employee of a political subdivision the ability to immediately appeal from an order that denied the benefit of an alleged immunity from liability and enacted R.C. 2744.02(C) as part of H.B. 350. The city cites strong public policy in support of this law. Nevertheless, with no analysis of the constitutional viability of R.C. 2744.02(C) itself, the statute was struck down in Shewardmerely because it was part of the overall tort reform bill.

¶4*197Nevertheless, I am constrained to agree that, based upon the technical requirements in the bill-making process, R.C. 2744.02(C) was neither enacted nor reenacted by H.B. 215. Therefore, I concur.

Moyer, C.J., concurs in the foregoing concurring opinion.
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