Welcome back to OhioAppeals.com. For practitioners, the Ohio Supreme Court’s discretionary docket can often feel like a black box. By tracking every yes and no, we aim to provide a data-driven look at how the Supreme Court is shaping its calendar.Continue Reading Inside the “black box:” Analyzing the Feb. 17, 2026 jurisdictional announcements
In legal practice, few things trigger more anxiety than the collision of a long-awaited family vacation and a newly issued oral argument notice from the Ohio Supreme Court. As we have documented on this blog previously, the court is notoriously reluctant to reschedule arguments. Under S. Ct. Prac. R. 17.01(D), an assignment before the High Court takes precedence over nearly everything else.Continue Reading Oral argument continuances 2026: A rare success in Straub Nissan for vacations!
It sounds like a trick question, doesn’t it? How long is one year? 12 months, right? 365 days (366 in a leap year)? Well, according to a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision, the answer depends on whether you’re counting forward from an event or computing a statutory deadline, and the distinction matters more than you might think.Continue Reading How long is one year?
I remember 30 years ago when I served as a law-student intern at Ohio’s Second District Court of Appeals, one of my primary jobs was to review incoming appeals to help the judges decide whether the orders being appealed were final, appealable orders (FAOs) under Ohio law.Continue Reading Is denial of bifurcation a final appealable order? Maybe not, but the court isn’t telling why (yet)
We often hear the phrase “words matter” in appellate practice, but rarely does a case turn so heavily on the specific grammatical function of a single transitive verb. In a decision released last month, Z.J. v. R.M., 2025-Ohio-5662, the Ohio Supreme Court resolved a long-standing district conflict regarding the menacing-by-stalking statute.Continue Reading Diagramming intent: Supreme Court resolves stalking statute conflict with grammar lesson (and a chart)
Imagine a scenario: a municipality’s actions—say, noise and vibrations from a city-owned airport—effectively “take” a neighboring property. The catch? The property owner lives in a different jurisdiction. The municipality that “took” the property argues it has no authority to appropriate land outside its own borders, so a court can’t possibly order it to do so. Therefore, the municipality argues, the property owner lacks standing because their injury isn’t “redressable.”Continue Reading Takings & standing: Can you sue a “foreign municipality” for inverse condemnation? The Ohio Supreme Court says “yes”
On June 2, 2025, the Sixth Circuit rolled out its newest service, Brief Quality Control, or Brief QC. Brief QC is designed to prevent non-compliance issues with appellate briefs before they are formally filed with the Sixth Circuit. It is an additional step in the traditional ECF filing procedures that flags certain compliance issues.
The aim of Brief QC is to reduce the administrative burden placed on the Clerk’s Office and practitioners. As mentioned in the Brief QC announcement, the Sixth Circuit issued more than 700 deficiency notices in 2024, delaying cases and posing significant other issues.Continue Reading The Sixth Circuit’s goal of quality control
The Ohio Supreme Court’s Office of the Clerk recently released the Court’s Annual Statistics Report for the 2024 calendar year. Keep reading for the most up-to-date information on Supreme Court case volumes and trends in operational efficiency that have helped streamline case timelines.Continue Reading A year in numbers: Decade highs and lows detailed in Ohio Supreme Court’s 2024 Annual Statistics Report
On April 16, 2025, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed Crozier v. Pipe Creek Conservancy as improvidently accepted. Having a discretionary appeal dismissed as improvidently accepted means:
Seems like a waste, right?Continue Reading A pain worse than losing: Dismissal as improvidently accepted
When the Ohio Supreme Court accepts a proposition of law for jurisdictional appeal, it typically requires litigants to file merit briefs and present oral arguments before the Court. But what if the Ohio Supreme Court and an intermediate appellate court issue conflicting rulings almost simultaneously? In rare instances, after issuing its ruling in an already submitted case, the Court may sua sponte accept your client’s jurisdictional appeal and render a judgment based on the precedent set in that prior case – resolving your case in one swift action. Continue Reading Victory without a word: How to win your case at the Ohio Supreme Court without merit briefing or oral argument