Two laws addressing the ability of healthcare providers to contact crime and accident victims, which were passed in the state budget bill, then amended later, are not unconstitutional for violating the “one-subject rule,” the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed an Eighth District Court of Appeals ruling striking down two laws originally tucked into the state’s 2020-2021 biennial budget bill, which limited the ability to solicit business from crime and accident victims. The General Assembly later amended the laws in subsequent bills. However, the Eighth District ruled the revised laws were void because they attempted to revise language that was unconstitutionally enacted.

Writing for the Court, Justice Megan E. Shanahan explained that based on more than a century of Supreme Court precedent, once the legislature amended the challenged statutory provisions in later bills, the amendments repealed the prior versions and cured any alleged one-subject violations.

“The constitutionality of the two laws depends on the later enactments, not on the version of the two laws that were enacted by the General Assembly in the budget bill,” she wrote.

The Court remanded the case to the Eighth District to consider the state’s remaining arguments regarding the trial court’s granting of class certification and a preliminary injunction.  

Bills Alter Victim Contact Rights
In 2019, state lawmakers added provisions to the 2020-2021 operating budget bill to restrict contacting victims. The first, known as the “accident victim solicitation law,” was enacted in R.C. 1349.05. The second, known as the “victim telephone number privacy law,” added a new section to the Ohio Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(mm).  

The solicitation law prevented healthcare providers from soliciting crime or motor vehicle accident victims for 30 days after the crime or accident occurred. The telephone number privacy law created an exemption to the public records act that concealed victim phone numbers in police reports.

Before the two laws took effect, Allied Health & Chiropractic, along with other chiropractors and healthcare providers, filed a lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. Allied Health claimed the laws were unconstitutional because they exceeded the subject of budget and appropriations in violation of the Ohio Constitution’s one-subject rule. The providers also claimed the laws violated the Ohio Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and free speech.

Laws Amended After Lawsuit Filed
As the challenge was pending in common pleas court, state lawmakers revised the new laws. In 2020, House Bill 151 was enacted and amended the accident victim solicitation law. Twice in 2021, first with Senate Bill 284, then with House Bill 110, legislators revised the victim telephone number privacy laws.

After the accident victim solicitation law was amended, the state asked the trial court to dismiss Allied Health’s lawsuit. The state argued the new law replaced the provisions in the budget bill and that Allied Health’s claims based on the budget bill were moot.  Rather than dismiss the case, the trial court allowed Allied Health to amend its complaint.

The providers argued the new legislation was unconstitutional because the original law had been enacted in the budget bill. The amended law should be considered “constitutionally ineffective and unenforceable” because the original enactment was void, the providers asserted.

After the victim telephone number privacy law was revised and passed as S.B. 284, the state then asked to dismiss the challenge to the provision. The trial court rejected the requests. The trial court then granted summary judgment to Allied Health, finding the laws unenforceable because they originated from a bill that violated the one-subject rule.

The state appealed to the Eighth District, which affirmed the trial court’s decision based on the one-subject rule. It did not address the other claims regarding the constitutionality of the laws' substance. The state appealed to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Analyzed Rules for Amending Legislation
Article II, Section 15(D) of the Ohio Constitution states that no bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.

Justice Shanahan explained that, after three cases between 1859 and 1911, the Court concluded that when a statute is amended, the unchanged provisions continue as law from their original enactment, and the new provisions become law at the time of their enactment. The presumption is that when the legislature adopts an amendment, it intends to make some changes to the existing law, and those provisions should change while leaving the rest of the existing law undisturbed.

Although only portions of the statutory language were changed, the Ohio Constitution and the Court treat an amendment as replacing the prior section and enacting the statute as amended. The original sections challenged by Allied Health were repealed when the later amendments were enacted, the Court ruled.

The Eighth District did not follow that precedent and instead considered provisions left from the original enactment in the challenged budget bill to be untouched when the later bills were enacted.

Instead, the later bills changed the language of the provisions that Allied Health had challenged. The Court ruled that the amended versions derive from those later enactments, not from the budget bill, and must be judged independently of any alleged defect in the original enactments. 

“If the same flaws are repeated in the new statute, then constitutional infirmities might persist. But the statute must be judged as amended – not as it was,” the opinion stated.

The provisions of the laws that the healthcare providers object to now derive from the later bills, not the budget bill, the Court ruled. It noted that Allied Health did not challenge the amendments under the one-subject rule. The amended language is now the operative law, and the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the earlier versions does not render the later versions void, the Court concluded.

The Court directed the Eighth District to consider the state’s remaining arguments regarding the trial court's granting of class certification and a preliminary injunction.

2024-0945. Allied Health & Chiropractic LLC v. State, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3308.

View oral argument video of this case.

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