The Supreme Court of Ohio today revived for a second time a Nelsonville woman’s lawsuit to remain on the Nelsonville city council.

In a unanimous per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court found the Fourth District Court of Appeals wrongly dismissed Margarita Nguyen’s request to be reinstated as a member of the Nelsonville City Council and as council president. A legal tug-of-war has resulted in Nelsonville having two competing groups claiming to be the rightfully elected city council.

In 2025, the Court rejected the Fourth District’s assessment that Nguyen and fellow council member Carol Powell waited too long to challenge their ouster from office. Today, the Court concluded that the Fourth District wrongly dismissed Nguyen’s case as moot based on the results of the contested 2025 municipal elections, which purportedly terminated her seat.

The Court ruled the Fourth District could not deem Nguyen’s case moot without first deciding the legal issues that had led to competing councils. The lower court also must assess whether Nguyen’s brief resignation justified her removal from office.

Resistance to Ballot Issue Leads to Competing Councils
Nelsonville voters adopted a city charter form of government in 1994. In 2024, Nelsonville voters approved a citizen-driven initiative, Issue 23, to abolish the city charter and return the city to a government that follows state law, known as a statutory form of government.

Ngyuen was elected to city council in 2023, when Nelsonville was under the charter form of government. Her four-year term was set to expire in December 2027. The initiative to return the city to the statutory form called for elections to city offices, including city council, in November 2025. The new government form would take effect in January 2026.

After the voters approved of the change but before the November 2025 elections, the charter city council passed Ordinance 54-25. The ordinance purported to repeal Issue 23. Ordinance 54-25 declared that the charter form of government would continue.

After the passage of the ordinance, Nelsonville sought to block the election of candidates for roles in the new statutory government. The Supreme Court rejected the city’s efforts to nullify the 2025 elections in its State ex rel. Nelsonville v. Athens Cty. Bd. of Elections decision.

A new slate of city officials, including the city council, assumed their elected seats in 2026.

Nguyen and the members of the city council elected under the charter insist that Ordinance 54-25 continued the charter form of government and that the council members elected under the charter comprise the rightful city council.

Competing Lawsuits Have Yet to Resolve Issue
While the charter city council continued to insist it was in power, the elected council members of the statutory government sought a writ of quo warranto from the Fourth District, asking the court to remove the charter council members and allow the statutory council to govern.

The Fourth District denied their writ. The Fourth District found it could not determine whether the charter or statutory council should be in power without knowing whether the charter council had the right to nullify Issue 23 by the passage of the ordinance. The Fourth District declared that it lacked jurisdiction to consider it.

The issue of whether the city council could override the vote to revert to a statutory government is the subject of a separate lawsuit, which is pending before the Supreme Court.

Council Member Complicates Her Standing
Nguyen was sworn into office in December 2023, a month after her election. Soon after, the council president resigned. Nguyen was selected by council members in January 2024 as council president.

Less than a month into her tenure as council president, Nguyen sent an email to the other council members stating she was resigning “as council president and as a council member altogether.” The next morning, Nguyen sent the council members another email, stating she had changed her mind and was rescinding her resignation.

Three council members replied that they were accepting her resignation, but not her recission of her resignation. They considered Nguyen to no longer be a member of city council and named another person to serve on city council. They also elected council member Gregg Clement to replace Nguyen as council president.

Nguyen then filed her lawsuit to retain her seat.

Supreme Court Analyzed Denials of Council Members’ Lawsuit
The per curiam opinion explained that a writ of quo warranto is the only means to contest a right to hold a public office, and Nguyen had to establish that those holding her council seat and the council presidency are unlawfully holding office.

The Fourth District had dismissed Nguyen’s quo warranto claim as moot. The Fourth District concluded that since voters did not elect her to a seat on the new statutory city council in November 2025, she could not use quo warranto to challenge the results of the election. The Court found the Fourth District’s reasoning for rejecting Nguyen’s case was flawed.

The Court stated that before the Fourth District could consider Nguyen’s case moot, it first had to resolve whether the charter council had been abolished or if it was still in power. If Issue 23 was in effect and the city council could not repeal it through Ordinance 54-25, then Nguyen’s seat was eliminated. Then, she has no right to be in office, and the charter council is no longer in power, the opinion noted.

“On the other hand, if Ordinance 54-25 validly repealed Issue 23, then the council seat to which Nguyen was elected in 2023 still exists because Nelsonville’s charter government would remain operative,” the Court stated.

The Fourth District could not reject Nguyen’s lawsuit based on the 2025 election without first deciding whether Ordinance 54-25 validly repealed Issue 23, the Court concluded.

The opinion noted that both Nguyen and the newly elected statutory council members have asked the Supreme Court to decide the validity of the attempt to repeal Issue 23. The Court stated it was declining to do so because deciding the issue alone would not resolve Nguyen’s case.

The Fourth District has not ruled on whether Nguyen’s 2024 resignation was in effect, or if she was legally able to rescind her resignation and remain in office. The factual question of whether she resigned must first be addressed by the Fourth District before deciding her case arguing that the charter council is still in power and that she is the elected president of that council.

2026-0429. State ex rel. Nguyen v. Lawson, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3814.

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.