State ex rel. Tenace v. Court of Claims of Ohio - Ohio Supreme Court Opinion - Ohio Supreme Court Decision

	ROMINGER LEGAL
		Ohio Court Cases and Opinions - Ohio Legal Research
					Need Legal Help?
					Need Legal Help?
LEGAL RESEARCH CENTER
LEGAL RESEARCH CENTER			LEGAL HEADLINES - CASE LAW - LEGAL FORMS	NOT FINDING WHAT YOU NEED? -RESEARCH

This court case was taken from the web sites of the Ohio Courts. Search our site for more cases - CLICK HERE

LEGAL RESEARCH

COURT REPORTERS

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

PROCESS SERVERS

DOCUMENT RETRIEVERS

EXPERT WITNESSES

Find a Private Investigator

Find an Expert Witness

Find a Process Server

Case Law - save on Lexis / WestLaw.

Legal News - Legal Headlines

[Cite as State ex rel. Tenace v. Court of Claims of Ohio, 94 Ohio St.3d 319, 2002-Ohio-790.]

THE STATE EX REL. TENACE, APPELLANT, v. COURT OF CLAIMS OF OHIO ET
AL., APPELLEES.
[Cite as State ex rel. Tenace v. Court of Claims of Ohio (2002), 94 Ohio St.3d
319.]
Mandamus and procedendo sought to compel Court of Claims to rule on merits
of relator's motion for court review of the administrative determination
of his claim to recover replacement value of missing property and to
compel the Mansfield Correctional Institution to permit him to replace
personal property that the prison either lost or destroyed -- Court of
appeals' denial of writs affirmed.
(No. 01-1353 -- Submitted January 8, 2002 -- Decided February 27, 2002.)
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 01AP-64.
__________________

Per Curiam. According to the complaint of appellant, Troy M. Tenace, an
inmate at appellee Mansfield Correctional Institution, during February 1998, he
was transferred to an outside court. Pursuant to the transfer, Tenace's personal
property was delivered to the custody of the prison. In November 1999, when
Tenace returned to the prison, he complained that several items of his personal
property were missing.

In December 1999, Tenace instituted a complaint against the prison in
appellee Court of Claims of Ohio to recover the replacement value of the missing
property. In May 2000, a deputy clerk of the Court of Claims rendered an
administrative determination granting Tenace's claim in part and ordering the
prison to pay him $375. In June 2000, Tenace filed a motion for new trial. He
subsequently filed a motion for the Court of Claims to review the administrative
determination. The Court of Claims denied Tenace's motion for new trial and

SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
dismissed his motion for court review because he had failed to timely file it. In
December 2000, the Court of Claims denied Tenace's motion for relief from its
judgment.

In January 2001, Tenace filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals for
Franklin County for writs of mandamus and procedendo to compel the Court of
Claims to rule on the merits of his motion for court review and to correct its abuse
of discretion in denying his motions. Tenace also requested a writ of mandamus
to compel the Mansfield Correctional Institution to permit him to replace his
personal property that the prison either had lost or destroyed. Tenace attached to
his complaint an affidavit in which he stated that he had "brought no other civil
action in the past against the State of Ohio or its employees save for a small
claims complaint against the Mansfield Correctional Institution in the Court of
Claims of Ohio, Ct. Cl. Case No. 99-14513-AD, the subject matter in the above-
captioned case."

The prison and the Court of Claims filed motions to dismiss the
complaints for failure of Tenace to comply with R.C. 2969.25(A). They claimed
that Tenace had failed to file an affidavit describing civil actions in New York
that had taken place within the last few years. Tenace countered that these were
not required to be disclosed because they were not actions against the state of
Ohio or its employees and they were criminal rather than civil actions. A
magistrate for the court of appeals recommended granting appellees' motions and
dismissing the cause. In June 2001, the court of appeals adopted the magistrate's
recommendation and denied the writs. This cause is now before the court upon an
appeal of right.

Tenace asserts that the court erred in denying the writs based on R.C.
2969.25(A), which provides:

"At the time that an inmate commences a civil action or appeal against a
government entity or employee, the inmate shall file with the court an affidavit
2

January Term, 2002
that contains a description of each civil action or appeal of a civil action that the
inmate has filed in the previous five years in any state or federal court. The
affidavit shall include all of the following for each of those civil actions or
appeals:

"(1) A brief description of the nature of the civil action or appeal;

"(2) The case name, case number, and the court in which the civil action
or appeal was brought;

"(3) The name of each party in the civil action or appeal;

"(4) The outcome of the civil action or appeal, including whether the court
dismissed the civil action or appeal as frivolous or malicious under state or federal
law or rule of court, whether the court made an award against the inmate or the
inmate's counsel of record for frivolous conduct under section 2323.51 of the
Revised Code, another statute, or a rule of court, and, if the court so dismissed the
action or appeal or made an award of that nature, the date of the final order
affirming the dismissal of the award." (Emphasis added.)

The three cases that appellees cited below in support of their claim that
Tenace failed to list cases required by the statute were People v. Tenace (1998),
256 A.D.2d 928, 682 N.Y.S.2d 279; Tenace v. New York (2000), 530 U.S. 1217,
120 S.Ct. 2223, 147 L.Ed.2d 254; and In re Tenace v. Rosen (1997), 89 N.Y.2d
973, 678 N.E.2d 499, 655 N.Y.S.2d 886. The court of appeals correctly held that
the affidavit requirement of R.C. 2969.25(A) applies to non-Ohio actions because
the language of the statute specifies "any state or federal court." (Emphasis
added.)

The court of appeals, however, erred in holding that Tenace failed to
comply with R.C. 2969.25(A) by not listing his New York cases in his affidavit.
The first two of these cases are manifestly direct appeals from his criminal
conviction and sentence, see People v. Tenace and Tenace v. New York, rather
than appeals in civil actions, and it is not clear that the remaining case was an
3

SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
appeal of a civil action. In fact, in a subsequent affidavit, Tenace claimed that all
of these cases were criminal cases, and appellees did not introduce evidence to
establish otherwise.

Nevertheless, even if the court's rationale was incorrect, its judgment
denying the writs was proper. See State ex rel. Stovall v. Jones (2001), 91 Ohio
St.3d 403, 404, 746 N.E.2d 601, 602, fn. 1, quoting State ex rel. Fattlar v. Boyle
(1998), 83 Ohio St.3d 123, 125, 698 N.E.2d 987, 989 (" `a reviewing court is not
authorized to reverse a correct judgment merely because erroneous reasons were
assigned as a basis thereof' ").

Tenace is not entitled to the requested extraordinary relief in mandamus
and procedendo. It is evident that Tenace challenges the decisions of the Court of
Claims regarding his motions. But neither mandamus nor procedendo can be
used to control judicial discretion, even if, as Tenace alleges, that discretion is
abused. See, e.g., State ex rel. Hansen v. Reed (1992), 63 Ohio St.3d 597, 600,
589 N.E.2d 1324, 1326-1327; State ex rel. Carroll v. Corrigan (2001), 91 Ohio
St.3d 331, 332, 744 N.E.2d 771, 773.

Further, to the extent that Tenace requests writs for the court to rule on his
motion for court review, neither mandamus nor procedendo will compel the
performance of a duty that has already been performed. State ex rel. Nelson v.
Russo (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 227, 228, 729 N.E.2d 1181, 1182.

In addition, Tenace is not entitled to the requested writ of mandamus
against the prison because he had an adequate legal remedy by way of his action
in the Court of Claims. The fact that he was partially unsuccessful in pursuing
that alternate remedy does not entitle him to extraordinary relief in mandamus.
See Howard v. Spore (2001), 91 Ohio St.3d 131, 132, 742 N.E.2d 649, 650 ("to
the extent that Howard may have already unsuccessfully invoked this alternate
remedy, he may not relitigate the same issue by way of mandamus").

Based on the foregoing, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
4

January Term, 2002
Judgment affirmed.

MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.
__________________

Troy M. Tenace, pro se.

Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, Todd R. Marti and Martin Susec,
Assistant Attorneys General, for appellees.
__________________
5