Time may be of the essence, but the wheels of justice turn slowly
The Ohio Supreme Court has recently focused on initiatives to enhance the timelier administration of justice. The Rules of Superintendence for the Courts of Ohio, for example, impose time limits for appellate and civil cases as indicated on the Supreme Court’s case-management reporting forms.
Those Rules also impose 120-day time limits for rulings on most motions and require judges to self-report decisions that have not been ruled upon within the applicable time periods. In many cases, however, these Rules do not prevent cases from languishing long on the docket, causing understandable frustration for parties and their counsel.
An extraordinary writ of procedendo is one (perhaps aggressive) option
The extraordinary, and rarely issued, writ of procedendo has always been available to try to force a lower court to “move it along.”
In State ex rel. Culgan v. Collier, for example, the Ohio Supreme Court granted such a writ to a pro se prisoner whose uncomplicated motion to terminate post-release control had been pending for more than a year. Although Culgan was a criminal case, the Supreme Court’s opinion in Culgan cites precedent for writs of procedendo being issued in long-delayed civil cases as well, such as State ex rel. Crandall, Pheils & Wisniewski v. DeCessna (noting an unjustifiable two-year delay in complying with appellate court’s mandate to hold trial on issue of damages in law firm’s counterclaim) and State ex rel. Weiss v. Hoover (compelling trial court to proceed in forcible entry & detainer action).
An obvious downside risk of filing an action for a writ of procedendo, however, is that counsel bringing that action would be suing the very judge from whom they seek a favorable ruling, and publicly requesting a higher court to direct that judge to hurry up. Judges juggling crowded dockets may naturally react defensively to such an approach.
The new “Case Inquiry Form” may provide a more subtle nudge
Those leery of the expense or perceived aggression of an extraordinary writ action might consider trying a recent initiative from the Ohio Supreme Court’s Case Management Section: its “Case Inquiry Form.” The formal launch of this Form was announced in the Court’s 2023 Annual Report, but it was a bit of a “soft” launch and may have escaped some Ohio attorneys’ attention. Although the Case Inquiry Form proposal was released for comment in 2022, we at the blog were unable to find news releases about the new Form after the comment period, either on the Court’s website or via Google News search.
The new Case Inquiry Form is available here on the Court’s website. The brief instructions at the top of the page state that:
When a timely decision or ruling (pursuant to Sup. R. 39, 40) has not occurred in a pending case, parties and attorneys may complete this form for assistance. The staff of the Case Management Section will review this and determine if they may intervene. Staff of the Case Management Section do not engage in the substance of a case, the law or how the law applies to the facts of the case, nor provide legal advice. Case management staff have expertise in the processes and procedures related to case management.
The Case Inquiry Form can be completed and submitted entirely online, it only requires completion by a single party or its counsel, and it looks like this:
The Case Management section of the 2023 Annual Report notes that after the Case Inquiry Form is submitted, the Case Management team “contacts the local court and shares the update with all parties” unless Case Management determines by reviewing the docket that the inquiry is premature.
One question that the Case Inquiry Form and its instructions does not answer is whether this is an anonymous process, or whether the identity of the person completing the Form is revealed to the judge with whom Case Management may decide to “intervene” after the Form is submitted. I contacted Case Management to ask that question, and was told that, although efforts are made to make the inquiry anonymous (or “joint”), the identity of the party completing the Form will be revealed to the judge if the judge specifically asks. I also asked whether Case Management has kept data on how many Case Inquiry Forms have been submitted since their launch and was told that almost 150 inquiries have been submitted either online or by telephone since August 2023.
Will the new Case Inquiry Form have a meaningful impact on delayed decision-making?
The Supreme Court’s 2023 Annual Report did note a meaningful reduction in backlogs in several Ohio courts, but it is too early to accurately assess whether that reduction is tied directly to the new Case Inquiry Form or to other factors. At the very least, however, the new Case Inquiry Form is another procedural arrow in counsel’s quiver to nudge a judge, short of suing the judge in an extraordinary writ action.