When a trial court issues a judgment, it must direct the clerk of courts to serve all interested parties and attorneys with the decision, and the clerk must record the notice of service on the docket, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today. At that point, the 30-day clock for filing notice of an appeal, as mandated by court rules, begins.

There are no exceptions to these steps, Justice William M. O’Neill wrote in the court’s unanimous opinion.

The decision overrules the Supreme Court’s 1993 opinion in State ex rel. Hughes v. Celeste and reinstates the appeal filed by one of the parties in this case.

Case Facts
In October 2012, Gator Milford, LLC, won a $366,684 judgment against the Clermont County Transportation Improvement District. Gator Milford then filed a request with the court for attorney fees. On November 27, 2012, the court denied the fees. However, the court did not instruct the court clerk to serve the judgment entry on the parties in accordance with a procedural rule for civil cases.

By maintaining a strict 30-day time period, there is no doubt as to when the notice of appeal is due. ... The requirement of service by the clerk of courts brings certainty to the appellate process.
- Justice William M. O'Neill

By maintaining a strict 30-day time period, there is no doubt as to when the notice of appeal is due. ... The requirement of service by the clerk of courts brings certainty to the appellate process.
- Justice William M. O'Neill

The trial court’s bailiff indicated on the entry that copies of the decision had been sent by fax, email, or regular mail to the involved attorneys and any parties without representation. But because the entry provided no instruction, the clerk did not serve the entry or note the service on the appearance docket. 

While attorneys for Gator Milford were aware of the ruling, they sent a letter to the court asking it to make the judgment final and appealable by telling the clerk to serve the decision and to note it on the docket. On January 30, 2013, the court ordered the clerk to do that, which the clerk did. Four days later, Gator Milford filed a notice of appeal.

Clermont County asked that the appeal be dismissed as untimely because it had not been filed within 30 days of the November judgment date. The Twelfth District Court of Appeals dismissed Gator Milford’s appeal and notified the Supreme Court of a conflict between its decision and one in the Tenth District.

Court’s Analysis
Justice O’Neill explained that appellate court rules state that an appeal must be filed within 30 days of a final order and that if a clerk does not complete service within a designated timeframe for civil cases, then the 30-day clock for filing an appeal begins when the clerk actually completes service.

He noted that nothing in the rules allows a bailiff, administrative assistant, law clerk, or any of the trial court judge’s other staff to serve the documents.

“By maintaining a strict 30-day time period, there is no doubt as to when the notice of appeal is due,” Justice O’Neill wrote. “The attorneys, the parties, and most importantly the court of appeals know whether the appeal has been filed timely. There is no guessing. The appellate court is not transformed into a fact-finder in an attempt to determine whether the parties or the attorneys had actual knowledge of the judgment entry. … The requirement of service by the clerk of courts brings certainty to the appellate process.”

State ex rel. Hughes v. Celeste
In Hughes, the governor at the time was found to have actual knowledge of a writ because an attorney had hand-delivered a copy of the order to the Ohio attorney general. The judgment had not been entered on the trial court’s journal. When the governor tried to appeal a later, related order from the trial court, the appeals court ruled that the 30-day timeframe started when the original judgment was hand-delivered to the attorney general. The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed that decision.

Noting that Gator Milford’s case involves a procedural, rather than a substantive, rule, Justice O’Neill reasoned that it is time to overrule Hughes.

“… Civ.R. 58(B) mandates that the clerk of court’s office serve the order with an accompanying notation on the appearance docket,” he wrote. “E-mails from the bailiff, faxes from the administrative assistant, phone messages from the law clerk, or copies slid under the attorney’s office door are unacceptable. We are talking about the very foundation for jurisdiction in the appellate court. It is simply too important to allow for notice in a casual manner.”

“The 30-day time period to file a notice of appeal begins upon service and notation of service on the docket by the clerk of courts regardless of actual knowledge by the parties,” he concluded.

2013-1177. Clermont Cty. Transp. Improvement Dist. v. Gator Milford, L.L.C., Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-241.

View oral argument video of this case.

Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information for the general public and news media. Opinion summaries are not prepared for every opinion, but only for noteworthy cases. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official headnotes or syllabi of court opinions. The full text of this and other court opinions are available online.

PDF files may be viewed, printed, and searched using the free Acrobat^® Reader
Acrobat Reader is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.