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Should Public Officials Be Held Liable for Violating Ohioans’ Rights?

Court considers whether Secretary of State Jon Husted should be required to compensate Ohioans whose First Amendment rights he violated

Cincinnati, OH – On Thursday, December 10, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on whether government officials must reimburse the victims of their unconstitutional conduct for the costs and expenses imposed by that conduct.

In late 2013, federal judge Michael Watson sided with the 1851 Center in Citizens in Charge v. Husted, determining that a “residency requirement” reenacted through Senate Bill 47 violated Ohioans’ First Amendment rights by prohibiting them from working with out-of-state petition circulators on their initiative. Thereafter, the Ohio Attorney General insisted that the Secretary of State Husted was nevertheless “immune” from damages for the harm he imposed on a conservative pension reform effort in Cincinnati.

In March, Judge Watson denied the plea for immunity, explaining that Mr. Husted may indeed be liable for the harm he inflicted because the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights were “clearly established,” and any reasonable public official would have known that the residency requirement was unconstitutional (the same requirement had been held invalid in 2008).

The Attorney General appealed, even though Mr. Husted does not deny that he violated Ohioans’ rights. Instead he claims that, as a government official, he should be absolutely immune from personal liability when enforcing statutes enacted by the legislature, irrespective of their constitutionality.

The parties filed briefs, and on December 10, the 1851 Center argued that government officers should be personally liable, rather than “immune,” when they violate Ohioans’ clear constitutional rights.

“Public officials should be held accountable for the harm they inflict when violating Ohioans’ rights, not their innocent victims,” according to Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center. “If public officials from the governor down through the police know that they will be liable for enforcing an unconstitutional law, they are far more likely to take Ohioans’ constitutional rights seriously. We would like to end the ‘I don’t make the law; I just enforce it’ mentality that many public officials use to escape liability for the harm they cause.”

If the State prevails in its appeal, public officials – whether police, bureaucrats, or politicians – may well be authorized to violate Ohioans’ rights without consequence.

Capital elections law professor Mark Brown is supporting the 1851 Center’s position with an amicus brief, while Ohio State elections law professor Daniel P. Tokaji has called denial of immunity here “dead-on right,” explaining “[s]ome qualified-immunity cases are difficult. Not this one.”

The oral argument occurred at 9:30am on Thursday December 10. You can listen to the archived oral argument HERE

Read the 1851 Center’s Appellate Brief HERE

Read media reports on this case HERE

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Ohio High Court Rebukes School District Tax Increase

Taxpayers cheated by Indian Hill School District’s “Inside Millage Move”, by raising taxes without public vote

Cincinnati – Indian Hill School District’s property tax increase without voter permission violated state law, according to unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court of Ohio.

This decision rebuffs Ohio school districts’ efforts to take advantage of a legal loophole created in 1998, which appeared to allow such tax increases in limited circumstances, though not to collect tax revenue that the districts do not need or use, as they run considerable budget surpluses and stockpile cash reserves.

The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law asserted, on behalf of the taxpayers and homeowners of the Indian Hill School District, that the District violated state law in 2009 when it raised property taxes by 1.25 mills ($400 per year, on average, for Indian Hill households), without voter permission, while already, without the tax increase, running multi-million dollar budget surpluses and maintaining a free and clear cash reserve of over $25 million.

The case centered around Ohio Revised Code Section 5705.341, which provides “no tax rate shall be levied above that necessary to produce the revenue needed by the taxing district or political subdivision for the ensuing fiscal year,” and “Nothing . . . shall permit . . . the levying of any rate of taxation . . . unless such rate of taxation for the ensuing fiscal year is clearly required by a budget of the taxing district.”

The case also drew upon Section 2, Article XII of the Ohio Constitution, which forbids property taxation “in excess of one per cent of its true value in money for all state and local purposes,” except by approval of the voters.

Indian Hill raised taxes despite carrying an unencumbered surplus of over $25 million in its bank account at the time.

The Court’s decision, authored by Justice O’Neill, explains “far from defraying current operating expenses, the increased revenue from the outside mills padded the district’s surplus. To permit a tax increase that performs no function other than to increase the amount of budget surplus would deprive the ‘clearly required’ standard of all meaning.”

“The Court’s decision means that already-wealthy Ohio school districts cannot continue to use public budgeting gimmicks to raise property taxes without a vote. This decision protects taxpayers here and also in many other districts,” said Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law.

“While running exorbitant budget surpluses and maintaining a thick bank account may echo fiscal responsibility to some, this means the school district is taking from taxpayers money that it does not need – – over-taxing them rather than allowing them to keep and use their own money for their families’ betterment.”

The 1851 Center will now litigate to recoup for the taxpayers the roughly six million dollars that Indian Hill School District wrongfully charged them between 2010 and 2014.

The Court’s Decision can be found HERE.

The Court’s Decision can be found HERE.

Oral Arguments from the case can be viewed HERE.

March 12, 2015: Cincinnati.com: Indian Hill Board stonewalls refund of inside millage tax

December 14, 2014: Sandusky Register: Court: Some schools’ inside millage moves could be illegal

December 4, 2014: Cincinnati.com: Court ruling could reduce property taxes in Indian Hill

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Legal Center to High Court: Cleveland-Area Stormwater Tax Unconstitutional

Northeast Ohio Sewer District tax on “impervious surfaces” is without legislative authorization, and is a property tax without the required voter approval

stormwaterColumbus, OH – The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law submitted to the Ohio Supreme Court its Merit Brief asserting that the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, a Cleveland-Akron area administrative agency, lacks authority to regulate property in response to rainwater, which is not sewage, and even if it has such authority, may not impose a stormwater-related tax without a vote.

The Sewer District seeks to levy a tax on “impervious surfaces” on hundreds of thousands of Northeast Ohio residential and business property owners. These surfaces include roofs, patios, driveways, and parking lots, and are taxes levied based upon the square footage of each. The District maintains that this is a means of addressing rain-related erosion, run-off, and flooding.

Although such districts’ authorities often claim that settlement agreements with the federal EPA mandate such programs, such settlements mandate no particular course of action and do not permit agencies to transgress the Ohio Constitution.

Joining the 1851 Center on the Brief is the Ohio Real Estate Investors Association. Objecting to the taxes and regulations are several Cleveland-area municipalities, as well as numerous property-owner and business organizations, including the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, Greater Cleveland Association of Building Owners and Managers, and the Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association.

The 1851 Center’s amicus brief argues that a sewer district, as an administrative agency of defined and limited powers, has no authority to impose taxes and regulations related to rainwater falling from the sky, i.e. something other than sewage. The brief further maintains that even if the agency had power to address rainwater, it may not tax property owners because the Ohio Constitution prohibits the raising of property taxes without voter approval through a tax levy election.

The 1851 Center’s brief asserts the following:

 

  • Pursuant to the Ohio Constitution, the General Assembly can only confer administrative power on an agency, and such agencies may not make policy.

 

  • The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District seeks to manage stormwater – – rain, essentially. The legislature, however, fully aware that it rains and snows in Cleveland, gave the Sewer District no such authority.

 

  • The Sewer District maintains no power to levy a tax without voter approval.

 

  • Although labeled a “fee,” the stormwater fee meets the legal standards of a tax because it is levied without regard to use, on certain property owners who gain no particular benefit from paying it, to advance goals that benefit the general public.

 

“Agencies like this are entirely unaccountable to the public, and this case stands for the principles that such agencies cannot take control of every facet of our lives, down to rainwater and the size of our patios, while taxing development in a manner that punishes and discourages it, with no regard to economic factors or public approval,” said Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law.

“The Sewer District’s tax on impervious surfaces, including nearly every patio, rooftop, and driveway in Northeast Ohio, bares a far closer resemblance to sewage than does rainwater, and the District must consider less invasive methods to dealing with rain, which we have managed to deal with without taxation for all of human civilization.”

Oral arguments will likely take place in the fall.

Read the Amicus Brief here.

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Legal Center to High Court: Traffic Cameras Unconstitutional in Ohio

Toledo’s enforcement scheme for enforcing traffic camera infractions violates Ohio Constitution

Columbus, OH – The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law  submitted to the Ohio Supreme Court its brief in Walker v. City of Toledo asserting that the City of Toledo’s method of fining drivers under its automated traffic camera violates the judicial article of the Ohio Constitution.

Joining the 1851 Center on the Brief are 21 State Representatives and eight State Senators.

The 1851 Center’s brief argues Section 4, Article I of the Ohio Constitution requires that Ohioans’ rights and liabilities must be determined by elected judges unless the General Assembly has created statutory authority for something less than a judge.

This means that the City is required to use municipal judges to enforce the camera violations, rather than the administrative hearing officers that all cities currently use. However, these cities’ agreements with private camera corporations require the use of administrative hearing officers.

“While the issue in this case may sound like a mere procedural hang-up, we are confident that if we succeed, traffic camera violations will essentially become impossibly expensive and untenable for Ohio cities to enforce. If we win, these cameras will quickly disappear from Ohio,” said Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law.

The 1851 Center’s brief asserts the following:

  • Through the Ohio Constitution, citizens vested judicial power in the courts only. And Ohio cities’ hearing officers exercise “judicial power” when they determine whether Ohio drivers are liable for the violation.
  • While the Ohio Constitution permits the Ohio General Assembly to create additional judicial power, legislators have never created blanket authority for cities, or traffic-camera specific authority. Instead, they have indicated that all such violations must run through municipal courts.
  • The City of Toledo, like other Ohio cities, cannot create judicial power through local ordinances.
  • “Administrative” traffic camera enforcement violates Ohioans’ right to defend themselves before an elected judge, as well as their due process right to judicial oversight before deprivation of their vehicles.

“At the end of the day, Due Process means that you get to see a judge before government takes your money or your car,” said Thompson. “Through these camera agreements, Ohio’s local governments are essentially selling to private corporations the right to fine their citizens and take their vehicles. We believe that it’s time to end this practice.”

The General Assembly has taken no action to enable administrative enforcement, but has instead maintained a longstanding statute requiring that municipal courts must field cases related to municipal ordinances, unless parking-related. This means that the City is required to use municipal judges rather than administrative hearing officers.

The municipalities maintain that constitutional “home rule” authority lends them the power to create judicial authorities such as the hearing officers. However the Ohio Supreme Court has rejected such a claim four times between 1925 and 1959, stating that only the General Assembly can create additional judicial officers, and violations of city ordinances must be handled in municipal courts. The Appellate Court was also unconvinced.

The Brief explains that if Ohio’s high court gives a pass to municipalities, it will be turning upside down the Ohio Constitution’s requirement that Ohioans have access to an actual judge before being deprived of their property. Toledo exacts a $120 fine, and seizes or immobilizes the vehicles of those who do not or cannot pay.

Joining the 1851 Center’s Brief is a bipartisan coalition of legislators, including State Senators Seitz, Schaffer, Jordan, Jones, Uecker, Patton, and Ecklund; and State Representatives Mallory, Adams, Maag, Becker, Lynch, Boose, Conditt, Perales, Hacket, Blair, Adams, Stautberg, Rosenberger, Dovilla, Blessing, Patmon, Beck, Reece, Hall, Derickson, and Barnes.

Read the Amicus Brief here.

March 17, 2014: WBNS-10TV: Ohio Supreme Court Could Soon Determine Fate Of Red Light Traffic Cameras [VIDEO]

March 15, 2014: Toledo Blate: State lawmakers, liberties groups oppose devices

March 14, 2014: San Francisco Gate via Associated Press: Ohio legislators, liberties groups oppose cameras

March 13, 2014: 610 WTVN: Court case could spell the end of traffic-enforcement cameras

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State’s Forced Chemotherapy on Amish Child Violates Parental Rights, Health Care Freedom Amendment

State sues to take Amish family’s daughter and force chemo on her after chemo nearly kills her and family chooses different treatment option   

Columbus, OH – The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law  began representation of Andy and Anna Hershberger, parents of Sarah Hershberger, a ten year old Amish girl upon whom the State of Ohio, through Akron Children’s Hospital, seeks to force an unnecessary and potentially-deadly form of chemotherapy.

The litigation began when the Hershbergers removed their daughter from the Hospital in July, in favor of a less invasive alternative treatment, after it appeared as though chemotherapy itself was a greater threat to her than her mild form of cancer. The Hospital then moved in court to take Sarah from the Hershbergers and force treatment in July.

The case is now pending on a jurisdictional motion before the Ohio Supreme Court.

The Motion for Jurisdiction requests review and reversal of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District of Ohio which concluded that Ohio children can be taken from their parents and forced to submit to objectionable procedures “without regard to the suitability of the parents.”  The Court used an obscure Ohio statute intended to address child abuse and neglect to order Sara to be taken from the home and forced to undergo chemotherapy.

However, the United States Supreme Court has long emphasized the importance of parents’ rights to direct the upbringing of their children, alongside the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. The Ohio Constitution does the same even more vigorously. Accordingly, on each front, the 1851 Center maintains:

  • Section 21, Article I of the Ohio Constitution, the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment passed by 67 percent of Ohio voters in 2011 prohibits the compulsion of any person “to participate in a health care system.”
  • Even before Section 21, the Ohio Supreme Court held that the Ohio Constitution ensures “personal security, bodily integrity, and autonomy,” and therefore “[t]he right to refuse medical treatment” is amongst the “rights inherent in every individual.”
  • The U.S Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution clearly provides protection to parents in the “care, custody, and control” of their children, including the right “to direct the upbringing . . . of children under their control.”
  • The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that the “primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition,” and “[t]he statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.”

The Supreme Court has also explained that there is a “fundamental right to refuse medical treatment.” Despite these clear principles, the Court for the Ninth District ruled that “upon a mere finding it is in the best interest of a minor, [the Ohio Revised Code] authorizes a probate court to supplant a parent’s rights and responsibilities through appointment of a limited guardian,” and that it may do so irrespective of whether “the court finds the child’s natural parents to be unsuitable parents.”

The Court made this ruling even though Sarah’s mild form of cancer is a type that can and is being treated without chemotherapy, and despite conceding that chemotherapy may well cause loss of hair, infections, infertility, cardiovascular disease, damage to internal organs, an increased risk of contracting other cancers, and even death.

“This case touches upon the very role of government in a free society: our Constitutions do not empower state government to rip a child from her admittedly competent parents and loving home, and force her to submit to unneeded treatment that may kill or sterilize her, when other courses of treatment are being pursued, and are working,” said Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center. “This is amongst the very things that the 2011 Health Care Freedom Amendment was passed to guard against – – a state that can force health care upon you or deprive you of it can control every aspect of life.”

The hospital’s move came only after county social services officials found the Hershbergers to be quality parents, and, and despite hospital demands, refused to take Sarah from the family. The Medina County probate court found that the Hershbergers were model parents, explaining “there is no evidence the parents are unfit or unstable,” and “there is not a scintilla of evidence showing the parents are unfit.”

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Lawsuit: Ohio’s Attempted Medicaid Expansion Unlawful

Governor’s end-run around the Ohio General Assembly violates the separation of powers, Controlling Board’s vote impermissibly contradicts General Assembly intent

Columbus, OH – The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law late yesterday moved in the Ohio Supreme Court, on behalf of six veteran Ohio legislators and two of Ohio’s largest pro-life organizations, to stop Ohio’s executive branch from expanding Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) Medicaid spending without legislative approval.

The legal action is filed on behalf of State Representatives Matt Lynch, Ron Young, Andy Thompson, Ron Maag, John Becker, and Ron Hood, and Cleveland Right to Life and Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati. These representatives and groups combine to represent nearly 1 million Ohioans.

The action asserts that in accepting jurisdiction over and passing the Governor’s proposed Medicaid spending, the Controlling Board exceeded its legal authority by acting inconsistently with the intent of the Ohio General Assembly. Specifically:

R.C. 127.17 states: “The Controlling Board shall take no action which does not carry out the legislative intent of the general assembly regarding program goals and levels of support of state agencies as expressed in the prevailing appropriation acts of the general assembly.”

The Ohio General Assembly first removed Governor Kasich’s proposed expansion of Medicaid spending from the state budget bill, and then inserted a prohibition against the expansion and spending.

Article II of the Ohio Constitution requires that the legislature, rather than administrative boards such as the Controlling Board, make major policy decisions.

In a 1980 challenge to the Controlling Board, the Ohio Supreme Court held that the Controlling Board’s authority is only constitutional because it must adhere to the intentions of the General Assembly, and because of “the availability of mandamus relief” through the High Court.

“Many competent individuals make strong arguments against Medicaid Expansion on policy grounds. Success in our lawsuit, however, will not prohibit changes to Medicaid through legitimate means. Our lawsuit stands for the simple proposition that neither this Governor nor any other is a king,” said Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center.

“For government to be limited, the making of transformational public policy requires the assent of the Ohio General Assembly, and cannot be done through administrative overreach. This occasion requires Ohioans to draw a line in the sand and affirm that we’d rather not bring Washington D.C.- style decision-making to Ohio.”

The Supreme Court of the United States, in its seminal decision last July in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, explained that the spending expansion transforms a state’s Medicaid program from “a program to care for the neediest among us” to “an element of a comprehensive national plan to provide universal health insurance coverage” that “dramatically increases state obligations under Medicaid,” and is “an attempt to foist an entirely new health care system upon the States.”

Read the Complaint HERE.

October 23, 2013: Dayton Business Journal: Ohio Medicaid expansion gets legal challenge

October 23, 2013: WOSU NPR 89.7: Activists, Lawmakers Bring Promised Lawsuit Over Medicaid

October 22, 2013: Cincinnati.com: SW Ohio conservatives file suit to stop Medicaid expansion

October 22, 2013: Bloomberg: Ohio Medicaid Expansion Plan Challenged in Lawsuit

October 21, 2013: New York Times: Medicaid Expansion Is Set for Ohioans

October 21, 2013: Columbus Dispatch: Medicaid-expansion opponents plan to sue Kasich administration

October 21, 2013: 60 Seconds Ohio: Maurice Thompson answers questions following Ohio expansion of Medicaid [VIDEO]

October 14, 2013: NBC 4: Controlling Board Medicaid Maneuver May Face Legal Challenge [VIDEO]