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Court Holds Prohibition Action Was Wrong Vehicle to Challenge Cleveland Traffic Camera Ordinance
2006-0971. State ex rel. Scott v. Cleveland , 2006-Ohio-6573.
Cuyahoga App. No. 87985, 2006-Ohio-2062. Judgment affirmed.
Resnick, Lundberg Stratton, O'Connor and O'Donnell JJ., concur.
Moyer, C.J., Pfeifer and Lanzinger, JJ., concur in judgment only.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rod/newpdf/0/2006/2006-Ohio-6573.pdf
(Dec. 20, 2006) The Supreme Court of Ohio today upheld a ruling in which the 8th District Court of Appeals refused to issue a writ of prohibition that would bar the City of Cleveland from conducting administrative hearings or collecting traffic fines based on evidence of traffic violations obtained through a system of automated roadside cameras.
The case involved a petition filed with the 8th District in April 2006 by Cleveland resident Stuart E. Scott and other motorists who had received mailed notices from the Cleveland Parking Violations Bureau informing them that vehicles registered in their names had been photographed by one of the unmanned cameras while speeding or running a red light. Scott and the other vehicle owners requested hearings to appeal their citations, and subsequently filed an original action in the court of appeals seeking a writ of prohibition that would permanently bar the city from conducting hearings or assessing traffic fines against vehicle owners based solely on evidence of violations obtained through the automated camera system.
In today's decision, the Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of the city ordinance authorizing the camera system or the enforceability of citations issued under that ordinance, but ruled on procedural grounds that the 8th District was correct in dismissing the petitioners' suit because an action in prohibition was not a legal means available to them to challenge the ordinance.
In a per curiam opinion joined by four Justices, the Court noted that: “In order to be entitled to the requested writ of prohibition, appellants had to establish that (1) the city was about to exercise judicial or quasi-judicial power, (2) the exercise of that power was unauthorized by law, and (3) denying the writ would result in injury for which no other adequate remedy exits in the ordinary course of law.”
While agreeing that the civil hearing process provided under the traffic camera ordinance was an exercise of quasi-judicial authority by the city, the Court noted that the “home rule” provision of the Ohio constitution grants municipalities specific authority “to exercise all powers of local self-government and to adopt and enforce within their limits such local police, sanitary and other similar regulations as are not in conflict with general laws.” In light of that broad grant of authority, the Court held that the petitioners had not shown that Cleveland “patently and unambiguously” lacked jurisdiction to enforce the camera ordinance.
The opinion also agreed with the 8th District's holding that denial of an extraordinary writ in this case did not leave Scott and the other petitioners without legal recourse, “because appellants have an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law by way of the administrative proceedings set forth in (the traffic camera ordinance) and by appeal of the city's decision to the common pleas court.”
The Court's opinion was joined by Justices Alice Robie Resnick, Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, Maureen O'Connor and Terrence O'Donnell. Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Judith Ann Lanzinger concurred in judgment only.
Contacts
David J. Betras, 330.746.8484, for
Stuart Scott et al.
Thomas J. Kaiser, 216.664.2852, for the City of Cleveland.
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