State ex rel. Target Auto Repair v. Morales (Slip Opinion)State ex rel. Target Auto Repair v. Morales (Slip Opinion)
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State ex rel. Target Auto Repair v. Morales, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-2062.]
NOTICE
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published.
SLIP OPINION NO. 2022-OHIO-2062
Workers’ compensation—
Per Curiam.
{¶
{¶ 2} We affirm the Tenth District‘s judgment denying the writ because Target Auto Repair‘s arguments on appeal derive directly from the Tenth District magistrate‘s decision to which Target Auto Repair failed to timely object.
I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
A. Injury and VSSR Award
{¶ 3} Morales sustained injuries while working as an auto-body-repair technician for Target Auto Repair on February 27, 2014. His workers’ compensation claim was allowed for multiple conditions, including the total loss of vision in his left eye. He also applied for a VSSR award, alleging that Target Auto Repair had violated multiple sections of the Ohio Administrative Code. The commission granted Morales‘s application for a VSSR award in the amount of 50 percent of the maximum weekly rate. Target Auto Repair requested reconsideration, which the commission denied.
B. Mandamus Action and Appeal
{¶ 4} Target Auto Repair then filed this mandamus action in the Tenth District. The magistrate recommended denying the writ request. Due to a clerical error by its counsel, Target Auto Repair filed its objections to
{¶ 5} On October 2, 2019, Target Auto Repair filed a motion for relief from judgment under
{¶ 6} On November 7, the Tenth District issued a journal entry granting the
{¶ 7} This case was referred to mediation on October 22, 2019, see 157 Ohio St.3d 1449, 2019-Ohio-4326, 133 N.E.3d 509, but returned to the regular docket on June 25, 2021, see 163 Ohio St.3d 1456, 2021-Ohio-2110, 170 N.E.3d 29. Subsequently, Target Auto Repair and the commission filed merit briefs and Target Auto Repair filed a reply brief. The case is ripe for decision.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Only the August 20, 2019 Judgment is Before Us for Review
{¶ 8} The court of appeals issued a judgment on August 20, 2019, in which it noted that Target Auto Repair had failed to file objections to the magistrate‘s decision. The court therefore independently reviewed the record and thereafter adopted the magistrate‘s decision as its own. Target Auto Repair appealed the August 20 judgment to this court on October 3. That action stripped the Tenth District of jurisdiction to rule on Target Auto Repair‘s
{¶ 9} Once a judgment has been appealed, “[j]urisdiction [to rule on a
B. Target Auto Repair May Not Appeal the Tenth District‘s Adoption of Findings of Fact or Conclusions of Law to which It Failed to Timely Object
{¶ 10}
Except for a claim of plain error, a party shall not assign as error on appeal the court‘s adoption of any factual finding or legal conclusion [in a magistrate‘s decision], whether or not specifically designated as a finding of fact or conclusion of law under
Civ.R. 53(D)(3)(a)(ii) , unless the party has objected to that finding or conclusion as required byCiv.R. 53(D)(3)(b) .
{¶ 11} We applied
{¶ 12} We observed that the injured worker‘s arguments on appeal “derive[d] directly from the conclusions of law contained in the magistrate‘s decision.” Id. We then noted that the injured worker had not timely objected to those conclusions as required by
{¶ 13} Similarly here, Target Auto Repair‘s arguments on appeal derive directly from the magistrate‘s findings of fact and conclusions of law. Its merit brief asserts that “[t]he Magistrate‘s decision was in error regarding the applicable law and factual issues.” Target Auto Repair expressly states that its arguments on appeal are its previously unasserted objections:
When this Appeal was filed, the Court of Appeals had not ruled on Target‘s objections due to a clerical error in the filing of Target‘s objections. As the Court had not ruled upon the objections prior to the filing of the Notice of Appeal on October 3, 2019, Target re-asserts its objections here to preserve its rights and have the objections ruled upon.
{¶ 14} Target Auto Repair‘s merit brief sets forth four arguments, which are the same arguments raised in the objections Target Auto Repair filed in the court of appeals after appealing the August 20 judgment to this court. Yet,
{¶ 15}
In appeals of civil cases, the plain error doctrine is not favored and may be applied only in the extremely rare case involving exceptional circumstances where error, to which no objection was made at the trial court, seriously affects the basic fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial process, thereby challenging the legitimacy of the underlying judicial process itself.
Goldfuss v. Davidson, 79 Ohio St.3d 116, 679 N.E.2d 1099 (1997), syllabus; see also Jones v. Cleveland Clinic Found., 161 Ohio St.3d 337, 2020-Ohio-3780, 163 N.E.3d 501, ¶ 24. Target Auto Repair does not expressly assert plain error. In any event, its arguments relate to the weight of the evidence and the application of the relevant regulations to the underlying facts, but they do not present the exceptional circumstances and institutional concerns required for the plain-error doctrine to apply.
III. CONCLUSION
{¶ 16} Because Target Auto Repair‘s arguments on appeal derive directly from the magistrate‘s decision to which Target Auto Repair failed to timely object, and because Target Auto Repair has failed to establish plain error, we affirm the Tenth District‘s judgment denying the request for a writ of mandamus.
Judgment affirmed.
O‘CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART, and BRUNNER, JJ., concur.
Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith, L.L.P., and Joseph Fiorello, for appellant.
Dave Yost, Attorney General, and John Smart, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio.