Ohio Supremes Hold Chesley May Not Relitigate Kentucky Judgment

The Ohio Supreme Court weighs in on the seemingly endless saga of Stanley Chesley

The Boone County, Kentucky, Circuit Court has entered a multimillion dollar judgment against former attorney Stanley M. Chesley. Denied relief from the judgment by the Kentucky courts, Chesley has turned to the courts of Ohio to thwart collection of the judgment and relitigate the case. And Chesley has found a receptive audience in the respondent, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ruehlman. In Chesley v. Ford, Hamilton C.P. No. A1500067, Judge Ruehlman has repeatedly acted to shield Chesley and his assets from creditors, despite a patent lack of jurisdiction.

Relator, Angela M. Ford, seeks a writ of prohibition to preclude Judge Ruehlman from continuing to exercise jurisdiction over the Hamilton County case. Chesley and his former law firm, as intervenors, oppose this request on the merits and also based on a claim of mootness. We grant a peremptory writ of prohibition and order Judge Ruehlman to vacate his orders. We deny Ford’s request for a writ of mandamus.

The court was highly critical of the Ohio judge’s pro-Chesley rulings

 Chesley’s complaint asked the court to impose conditions on Ford, as attorney for the judgment creditors, for domesticating the Kentucky judgment that far exceed the statutory requirements. The Ohio Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act does not require judgment creditors to calculate and disclose their respective shares of the judgment, detail the amounts and dates on which they recovered money from other sources, or disclose the amount of money retained by their attorney. But Chesley requested all these disclosures and more as a precondition to allowing Ford and her clients to even file their judgment in Ohio. And whereas the act provides a 30-day grace period after the foreign judgment is filed, Chesley demanded a 90-day halt to collection efforts after all these reports were provided. There is no statutory authority for any of this relief.

Despite his patent lack of authority, Judge Ruehlman granted this relief and more. Whereas Chesley sought to impose preconditions on the filing of the foreign judgment, Judge Ruehlman’s preliminary injunction order barred Ford and the creditors from filing the judgment in Ohio altogether, with no mention at all of any conditions that, if satisfied, would lift the prohibition.

We see no basis whatsoever for Judge Ruehlman’s assertion of jurisdiction to inject himself into the collection process. A common pleas court has jurisdiction over a foreign judgment “once that judgment is filed in accordance with R.C. 2329.022.” Doser v. Savage Mfg. & Sales, Inc., 54 Ohio App.3d 22, 560 N.E.2d 782 (8th Dist.1988), syllabus. But the Abbott creditors had not yet filed the judgment in Ohio; in fact, they were forbidden to do so by Judge Ruehlman. And now that this court has stayed Judge Ruelhman’s order, the claimants have domesticated their judgment and the case has been assigned to Judge Martin.

Justice Pfeifer dissented

I dissent because there were two more appropriate remedies available to relator, Angela M. Ford.

First, she could have filed an affidavit of disqualification against Judge Ruehlman with Chief Justice O’Connor. Second, having failed to do that, she should have been required to seek a remedy by way of appeal after a final, appealable order had been rendered.

The court’s order is linked here.

Cincinnati.com had this earlier report. They also had an editorial in March 2014 that took the judge to task in an unrelated matter. (Mike Frisch)