Category Archives: Public Interest Law

Wednesday, Finney Law Firm attorneys Curt Hartman and Christopher Finney brought a mandamus action at the Ohio Supreme Court to force disclosure of the official records of Cuyahoga County, Ohio relating to Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald’s use of his pass card for entering and leaving official County buildings.  FitzGerald is the democrat nominee for Governor in the November election.

Both the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper and the Ohio Republican Party have sought the records, yet FitzGerald and his County employees have refused to release the same.

The documents are clearly public records as defined by Ohio law, and no exception in the statute to their disclosure applies.  In other words, they are required by law to be produced.

Finney Law Firm has filed an original action for “mandamus,” directly with the Ohio Supreme Court.  Ohio law allows the “Relator” in such action, essentially the plaintiff, to choose whether to file the action with any of a County Common Pleas Court, an Ohio Appeals Court or the Ohio Supreme Court.  An action in mandamus is one to require a public official, here FitzGerald and other County employees, to perform duties they are required under the law to perform.

Read our complaint for writ of mandamus here.

Read our memorandum in support of writ of mandamus here.

Stay tuned to our blog for breaking developments in this matter.

Finney Law Firm’s public interest lawyers received plaudits from Enquirer reporter and editorialist Cindi Andrews for our work to keep government accountable.

Read her piece here.

 

Read the recent filings at the links below:

COAST Motion for Preliminary Injunction

SBA List Motion for Preliminary Injunction

SBA List & COAST Joint Motion for Summary Judgment

We are pleased to announce that the Finney Law Firm has been selected as counsel in a suit against Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald in a dispute regarding access to public records relating to Mr. FitzGerald’s work for the County.

Read the Ohio Republican Party’s Press Release here.

Finney Law Firm attorneys Curt C. Hartman and Christopher P. Finney are leading this litigation for the firm.

 

Politico has a brief summary of today’s Harris v. Quinn decision from the U.S. Supreme Court here.  As with the Hobby Lobby decision, it is narrow and cautious.  It is entirely limited to the attempt by the Illinois legislature to force home health care workers into unions, and likely does not apply directly to other fact patterns.

However, language in the opinion savaging Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which ruled that forced unionization for public employees was constitutional in 1977, has given renewed hope to those challenging forced unionization that the Court is moving in the direction of recognizing the right not to join a union.

Here is SCOTUS Blog’s more detailed analysis of today’s Harris decision.

Our very short plain English version of the Hobby Lobby decision from the U.S. Supreme Court today is that the decision very narrowly exempts  corporations whose shares are “each owned and controlled by members of a single family” from the contraceptive mandate based upon religious beliefs.

The longer Plain English version is here from the SCOTUS blog.

The podcast from Christopher Finney’s appearance today on 55 WKRC regarding Susan B. Anthony List and COAST cases against the Ohio Elections Commission is below: 

http://www.bsontheissues.com/shows

Monday morning at 10 AM, we have oral argument on Motions to Dismiss filed by the IRS, Lois Lerner, Holly Paz, Douglas Schulman and the rest of the rogue’s gallery of characters in the IRS scandal in front of U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott on one of the several suits that have been filed against the IRS over its targeting of pro-Israel and Tea Party groups seeking tax treatment under IRC 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4).  Our case is captioned NorCal Tea Party v. IRS, was the first suit filed, and is here because the scandal initially arose from actions of Cincinnati IRS agents.

The oral argument is on the IRS position that “it can do whatever it wants” and that no actions it takes, regardless of how outrageous, how targeted and how discriminatory, are subject to a suit under statute or the Constitution.  That seems pretty incredible, huh?

It does, but the IRS fears mightily the case proceeding beyond a Motion to Dismiss, because at that stage private litigants can proceed with documentary discovery and depositions, allowing the actions and motivations of the IRS to be thoroughly explored, all the way up to White House involvement.

So, a lot is at stake before Judge Dlott, starting with the oral argument at 10 AM tomorrow.

By the way, I ran across this June 13 blog entry from the “Cincinnati Tax Guy,” Steve Hamilton, that pretty accurately covers the legal issues in the “Z Street case,” which overlap the Cincinnati NorCal case pretty well.

The end of the October 2013 term of the U.S. Supreme Court is Monday, and they have two major decisions remaining on the docket:

1) Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (originally Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby), which addresses the requirement to provide contraceptive coverage in the Affordable Care Act, and more broadly the right of businesses owners to express their their religious beliefs through their business policies.

2) A case that we find  even more compelling and consequential, Harris v. Quinn, which well could establish a right-to-work (i.e., the right not to be forced to pay dues to a labor union) in the United States Constitution, at least for public sector employees.  The raging legal and political debate about forced union membership of public employees that has roiled the Country for decades, and even more intensely for the past five years (e.g., pitched political and legal battles over reform of forced unionization in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan), could come to a stunning conclusion on Monday.

If the Court takes a bold stance for liberty (i.e., freedom of choice for America’s public-sector workers of where their paycheck is spent and with whom they are required to associate), the consequences will be far-reaching.  Indeed, depending on the language of the decision, it could spell the end to forced unionization in the private sector as well.

We anxiously await both rulings.  Hobby Lobby is getting the most buzz; we think Harris could be the most important decision not just of this term, but of the entire Roberts Court.

[For more reading on the Harris v. Quinn case, the Illinois Policy Center has some perspectives : “Harris v. Quinn: Everything you need to know.“]

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Please note: Finney Law Firm blog contributors have major Court appearances and transactional work throughout the day Monday, so it will be Monday night before we will report — other than perhaps on Twitter — of the developments in these two landmark cases. So, we will write more by Tuesday morning.  In the meantime, we recommend the live blog on the www.Scotusblog.Com, which is linked here, beginning at 9:15 AM.

In a remarkable decision, the United States Supreme Court today unanimously struck down President Obama’s recess appointments of three members to the National Labor Relations Board.  The invalidation of the appointments was notable in itself, but the Court at the same time swept away a year and a half of decisions of the NLRB, as the Board had no quorum without the new members.

From one perspective, the decision shows a certain boldness of the Supreme Court in challenging — unanimously — unfettered executive authority, including a willingness to throw a bit of chaos into labor law.  From another view, however, the decision was substantially nuanced and cautious, as this analysis explains.

The decision is NLRB v. Noel Canning.