Z.J., APPELLEE, v. R.M., APPELLANT.
No. 2024-0340
Supreme Court of Ohio
December 23, 2025
Slip Opinion No. 2025-Ohio-5662
HAWKINS, J.
Certified by the Court of Appeals for Richland County, No. 2022 CA 0071, 2023-Ohio-3552.
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. 2025-OHIO-5662
Z.J., APPELLEE, v. R.M., APPELLANT.
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as Z.J. v. R.M., Slip Opinion No. 2025-Ohio-5662.]
Menacing by stalking—
(No. 2024-0340—Submitted February 13, 2025—Decided December 23, 2025.)
CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Richland County, No. 2022 CA 0071, 2023-Ohio-3552.
__________________
HAWKINS, J., authored the opinion of the court, which FISCHER, DEWINE, DETERS, and SHANAHAN, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, C.J., dissented, with an opinion. BRUNNER, J., dissented.
HAWKINS, J.
{¶ 1} We are asked to decide what a petitioner must show under
{¶ 2} In this certified-conflict case from the Fifth District Court of Appeals, both that court and the trial court cоncluded that the menacing-by-stalking statute required the petitioner seeking the protection order to believe only that the offender would cause him mental distress. But the Fifth District acknowledged that its interpretation of the statute placed its decision in conflict with decisions from other courts of appeals.
{¶ 3} We now resolve this conflict by holding that a petitioner‘s belief that an offender will cause him mental distress is grounds for showing a violation of the menacing-by-stalking statute to obtain a civil stalking protection order. We therefore affirm the Fifth District‘s judgment.
Background
{¶ 4} Once linked by familial bonds, the parties here are now separated by resentment, animosity, and legal processes. Appellee, Z.J., and appellant, R.M., have known each other for more than 30 years. They attended the same church, and R.M. was, at one point, married to Z.J.‘s cousin. Civility ended when R.M. begаn an affair with Z.J.‘s wife.
{¶ 6} For his part, Z.J. often gave as good as he got, escalating the cycle of confrontation. He regularly accused R.M. of being a pedophile, both during their face-to-face interactions and through posts and messages on social media. And оn at least one occasion, Z.J. initiated hostile contact—confronting R.M. one Sunday when R.M. was attending church with Z.J.‘s wife.
{¶ 7} Against this backdrop of enmity, Z.J. obtained an ex parte civil sexually-oriented-offense protection order naming R.M. as the respondent and designating Z.J. and his two minor children as the protected parties. Richland C.P. No. 21-CV-550, 1 (Nov. 8, 2021). Following a two-day full hearing, at which both Z.J. and R.M. testified, a magistrate granted a civil stalking protection order against R.M. and designated Z.J. as the only protected party.1 Richland C.P. No. 21-CV-550, 1 (Jan. 18, 2022). In granting the protection order, the magistrate interpreted the menacing-by-stalking statute as requiring that the petitioner seeking a protection order to merely believe that the respondent intends to cause the petitioner mental distress. Id. at Exhibit A at 7.
{¶ 9} R.M. appealed, and the Fifth District affirmed the trial court‘s judgment. First, the Fifth District noted its decision in Bloom v. Macbeth, 2008-Ohio-4564, ¶ 11 (5th Dist.), in which it held that under the menacing-by-stalking statute, a petitioner seeking a civil stalking protection order does not need to experience mental distress but only believe that the offender will cause physical harm or mental distress. 2023-Ohio-3552, ¶ 11 (5th Dist.). Then, applying that interpretation of the statute to the evidence here, the appellate court concluded that the trial court‘s judgment was supported by sufficient evidence and was not against the manifest weight of the evidence, finding that R.M. had engaged in a pattern of conduct causing Z.J. to believe that R.M. would cause physical harm or mental distress to Z.J. or his family. Id. at ¶ 22-25. One judge on the appellate panel concurred in the appellate court‘s judgment, agreeing with the court‘s disposition of R.M.‘s appeal but stating that he disagreed with the holding in Bloom and opining that the menacing-by-stalking statute requires a victim to actually experience mental distress. Id. at ¶ 41-42 (Hoffman, P.J., concurring).
{¶ 10} The Fifth District‘s interpretation of the menаcing-by-stalking statute placed its decision in conflict with decisions from the Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth Districts—all of which have concluded that the statute requires a victim to actually experience mental distress. See Smith v. Wunsch, 2005-Ohio-3498, ¶ 11 (4th Dist.); Caban v. Ransome, 2009-Ohio-1034, ¶ 23 (7th Dist.); State v. Payne, 2008-Ohio-5447, ¶ 7 (9th Dist.). The Fifth District entered an order certifying this conflict. No. 2022 CA 0071 (5th Dist. Mar. 4, 2024). We agreed that a conflict exists and ordered the parties to brief the conflict question certified by the Fifth District: “‘Whether
Analysis
Competing interpretations of R.C. 2903.211(A)(1)
{¶ 11} Before resolving the conflict, we must define its scope. Under
{¶ 12} Under the first reading,
{¶ 13} Although the Fourth and Ninth Districts did not engage in statutory interpretation, the results in Smith and Payne are consistent with this first reading of
{¶ 14} By contrast, the Fifth District‘s interpretation in this case aligns with a second reading of
{¶ 15} The Fifth District‘s analysis points the reader to a pair of cases—Bloom, 2008-Ohio-4564, at ¶ 11 (5th Dist.), and State v. Horsley, 2006-Ohio-1208 (10th Dist.)—but those decisions also lack any analysis. Indeed, Horsley is the negative image of Payne and Smith because the Tenth District assumed that the menacing-by-stalking statute prohibits conduct that causes a victim to believe that the offender will cause the victim mental distress and applied that interpretation to the facts of that case. Horsley at ¶ 25, 45-48.
{¶ 16} We recognized the conflict at issue once before in Fondessy v. Simon, 2013-Ohio-5096, a case we ultimately dismissed as improvidently certified, Fondessy v. Simon, 2014-Ohio-4638, ¶ 1. As then-Justice Kennedy explained in a dissenting opinion when we dismissed Fondessy, the courts of appeals were divided on how to interpret the mental-distress requirement of
{¶ 17} All told, the menacing-by-stalking statute has been subjected to inconsistent interpretations by the courts of appeals, resulting in uncertainty for trial сourts and litigants and the unequal treatment of litigants, id. at ¶ 21 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). It is time we settled the question. And because doing so involves statutory interpretation, it is a question of law that we review de novo. See Wayt v. DHSC, L.L.C., 2018-Ohio-4822, ¶ 15, citing Ceccarelli v. Levin, 2010-Ohio-5681, ¶ 8.
The text of R.C. 2903.211(A)(1) shows that belief that mental distress will occur is enough
{¶ 18} A statute that has been read two different ways by the courts of appeals requires careful parsing. Fortunately, the parsing of a statute is something we know how to do. When interpreting a statute, we do not ask “what did the general assembly intend to enact, but what is the meaning of that which it did
{¶ 19} Despite its tangled syntax, the first sentence of
{¶ 20} Reading the first sentence‘s text illustrates this point. The subject (“no person“) and the verb (“shall knowingly cause“) are clear. But the object becomes more complex. It is tempting to follow the pattern of simplicity and identify the object as “another person,” but doing so leaves the clause incomplete—and the reader hanging. “Cause” is a transitive verb, Webster‘s Third New International Dictionary (1986); as such, it requires an object to complete its meaning, and it “indicates what action the subject exerts on the object,” Chicago Manual of Style at 256-257. And it means “to serve as a cause or occasion of” something or “to effect by command, authority, or force.” Webster‘s. Thus, when
{¶ 21} What is more, this structure matters because it guides the reader to the provision‘s meaning in its entirety. The victim‘s belief is the predicate result caused by the offender‘s pattern of сonduct. And because “to believe” is what gives the first sentence‘s initial phrase grammatical integrity and meaning, “believe” must modify what comes after it.
{¶ 22} The back half of the first sentence then completes the front, explaining what it is that the offender must not cause the victim to believe. The back half begins by describing the victim‘s belief as concerning “that the offender will” do something.
{¶ 23} A final grammatical point, though subtler than the others, reinforces our adoption of the second reading of the menacing-by-stalking statute. When
{¶ 24} Taken together, the first sentence‘s grammatical elements convey a single, coherent meaning. For the initial clause to make grammatical sense, it must prohibit the offender from causing the victim to believe something. This phrase then introduces a parallel construction—a belief that the offender will cause physical harm or mental distress to the victim. And
{¶ 25} Turning from grammar to another tool of statutory construction, this understanding is confirmed by reading the first sentence of
{¶ 26} The second sentence of
In addition to any оther basis for the other person‘s belief that the offender will cause physical harm to the other person . . . or mental distress to the other person . . . , the other person‘s belief or mental distress may be based on words or conduct of the offender that are directed at or identify a corporation, association, or other organization that employs the other person or to which the other person belongs.
Here, again, for this sentence to be coherent, it must be read as recognizing that a victim‘s belief in future physical harm or mental distress satisfies the statute.
{¶ 27} The second sentence‘s use of the possessive is significant. In identifying what this sentence concerns, the text tells us that it concerns what evidence may form the basis of “the other person‘s belief.”
{¶ 28} In the first example, if we read the second sentence of
{¶ 29} Similar problems arise with the second example, in which we shorten the second sentence‘s introductory phrase a few words to read “[i]n addition to any other basis for the” but still have that phrase modify the same injury clauses. To be sure, the reading would separate out the victim‘s belief in such a way that it modifies only physical harm. But this reading also would leave us with grammatically incomplete and nonsensical phrases making up the rest of the sentence. The introductory phrase would be subject to an unnatural division from the rest of the sentence that would make it grammatically incomplete and unintelligible. And it would leave the mental distress element to read “[i]n addition to any other basis for the . . . mental distress to the other person . . . , the other person‘s belief or mental distress may be based” on the offender‘s words and conduct—another unnatural phrase. In sum, this example reveals an act of syntactical violence that makes sense only if it is meant to achieve a desired interpretative outcome, rather than seeking to understand what the text actually says.
{¶ 30} By contrast, when the second sentence of
R.M.‘s textual arguments do not withstand grammatical scrutiny
{¶ 32} In his brief, R.M. provides no independent statutory analysis. Instead, he relies on a single paragraph from Caban, 2009-Ohio-1034 at ¶ 24 (7th Dist.), in which the Seventh District reasoned that the menacing-by-stalking statute‘s repetition of “to the other person” after both “physical harm” and “mental distress” shows that “to believe” modifies only physical harm and not mental distress. Repetition alone, though, does not signify what R.M. claims.
{¶ 33} The first sentence of
{¶ 34} If one reads the first sentence of
{¶ 35} R.M.‘s core textual argument is that if the General Assembly intеnded for “to believe” to modify both “physical harm” and “mental distress,” then it would have written
We need not consider R.M.‘s other arguments
{¶ 36} Given the paucity of his textual arguments, the bulk of R.M.‘s brief provides other arguments as to why we should interpret
{¶ 37} Although understanding the text of
We reject the dissent‘s interpretation of R.C. 2903.211(A)(1)
{¶ 38} The dissent, too, would have us abandon grammatical and contextual coherence. The dissent focuses on the main clause of the second sentence of
{¶ 39} In reaching that conclusion, however, the dissent dismisses our grammatical analysis of the first sentence of
{¶ 40} The dissent then advances its troubled reading of
{¶ 41} The dissent seeks out this suppоsed conflict so that it can dismiss our grammatical analysis and appeal to the rule of lenity, codified in Ohio in
{¶ 42} But the dissent has not exhausted all the legitimate tools of interpretation, so the rule of lenity is not applicable here. When an incoherent
{¶ 43} The dissent also takes issue with the practical application of our interpretation. See dissenting opinion at ¶ 70-72. According to the dissent, a petitioner‘s belief in future mental distress, unlike actual mental distress, “is not susceptible of proof,” id. at ¶ 72. Whether a petitioner is likely to succeed in proving future mental distress, though, is not a factor that we should consider in a statutory-interpretation analysis.
{¶ 44} Rather than “dissociate words and phrases from [their] context,” Gabbard, 2021-Ohio-2067, at ¶ 22, we read
Conclusion
{¶ 45} When construing statutes, we often repeat the phrase that a statute “means what it says.” See, e.g., Everhart v. Coshocton Cty. Mem. Hosp., 2023-Ohio-4670, ¶ 13. And so it does here—though arriving at this meaning has required more technical analysis than usual. But this isn‘t grammatical hairsplitting. It is applying the rules of grammar to understand what the General Assembly wrote and what that text means.
{¶ 47} We therefore resolve the certified conflict by affirming the judgment of the Fifth District Court of Appeals.
Judgment affirmed.
__________________
KENNEDY, C.J., dissenting.
{¶ 48} This is a case about a statute,
{¶ 49}
{¶ 50}
{¶ 51} In this certified-conflict case, we are asked to resolve “‘[w]hether
{¶ 52} Although the majority‘s reading of
{¶ 53} The rule of lenity provides that “ambiguity in a criminal statute is construed strictly so as to apply the statute only to conduct that is clearly proscribed.” State v. Elmore, 2009-Ohio-3478, ¶ 38. And although this case
{¶ 54} Accordingly, I dissent and would answer the certified conflict by holding that a trial court may not issue a civil stalking protection order when the petitioner merely shows that he or she believes that the respondent will cause mental distress in the future.
Statutory Interpretation
{¶ 55} This case presents a question of statutory interpretation. In determining the meaning of a statute, “[t]he question is not what did the general assembly intend to enact, but what is the meaning of that which it did enact.” Slingluff v. Weaver, 66 Ohio St. 621 (1902), paragraph two of the syllabus. This court applies clear and unambiguous statutes as written. See Boley v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 2010-Ohio-2550, ¶ 20. However, a statute is ambiguous when “there are two equally persuаsive and competing interpretations of the law.” State ex rel. Ferrara v. Trumbull Cty. Bd. of Elections, 2021-Ohio-3156, ¶ 21. “When interpreting a statute, a court does not declare a statute to be ambiguous merely because there are two different ways to define a statutory term. Instead, the court must simply read the language of the statute, as informed by the canons of construction and context, and determine whether one best reading emerges.” State v. Gwynne, 2023-Ohio-3851, ¶ 20 (lead opinion).
R.C. 2903.211(A)(1)
{¶ 56}
{¶ 57} Again,
{¶ 58} The majority says that the first phrasing is the only way to read
{¶ 59} However, the second phrasing of
Note that the sentence splits into separate paths following the phrase “shall knowingly,” and one of those paths—the lower one—requires proof of actual mental distress.
{¶ 60} Consequently, there are two equally persuasive and competing interpretations of
{¶ 61} The second sentence of
{¶ 62} The second sentence‘s main clause unambiguously distinguishes between (1) creating the belief that physical harm will be suffered and (2) causing actual mental distress. For that main clause to mean that a person engages in menacing by stalking by simply creating a belief that mental distress will occur, the court would have to strike out three words from the second sentence: “the other person‘s belief or mental distress may be based on words or conduct of the offender that are directed at or identify a corporation, association, or other organization that employs the other person or to which the other person belongs.” Or it would have to add 13 words: “the other person‘s bеlief that the offender will cause physical harm or belief that the offender will cause mental distress may be based on words or conduct of the offender that are directed at or identify a corporation, association, or other organization that employs the other person or to which the other person belongs.”
{¶ 63} Neither is permissible, because “it is the duty of this court to give effect to the words used [in a statute], not to delete words used or to insert words not used,” Columbus-Suburban Coach Lines, Inc. v. Pub. Util. Comm., 20 Ohio St.2d 125, 127 (1969). The second sentence‘s main clause plainly provides that the types of evidence identified may be used to prove either a “belief” that physical harm will occur or actual “mental distress“—not just a “belief” that mental distress will occur. Standing alone, the second sentence‘s main clause is unambiguous. Contrary to the majority‘s assertion, see majority opinion, ¶ 42, this analysis does not depend on whether the General Assembly used the word “or” in a way that means “and.”
{¶ 64} The dependent clause in the second sentence contradicts that sentence‘s main clause. It states, “In addition to any other basis for the other
{¶ 65} The second sentence of
{¶ 66} Therefore, when read as a whole,
{¶ 67} “The rule of lenity is properly applied when, ‘after all the legitimate tools of interpretation have been applied, “a reasonable doubt persists.“’ ” Pribble at ¶ 23, quoting Scalia & Garner at 299, quoting Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 108 (1990). Put differently, the rule of lenity comes into play when a criminal statute is grievously ambiguous. See id. And although this case involves a civil stalking protection order, the operative language at issue here comes from a criminal statute—
{¶ 68} The Generally Assembly codified thе rule of lenity in
{¶ 69} Here,
{¶ 70} In addition, the majority‘s interpretation makes little sense in practice. A petitioner seeking a civil stalking protection order can prove that the respondent knew that his or her words or actions would cause the petitioner to believe that physical harm is imminent. Jill waves an axe at Jack; Jack threatens to shoot Jill. Objective proof is also available to prove the existence of actual mental distress, such as the description of symptoms or a diagnosis. But how does a petitioner ever prove that the respondent knew that his or her words or actions would cause the petitioner to believe that he or she will suffer mental distress in the unspecified future?
{¶ 71} Keep in mind that the statute defines “mental distress” as either “[a]ny mental illness or condition that involves some temporary substantial incapacity” or “[a]ny mental illness or condition that would normally require psychiatric treatment, psychological treatment, or other mental health services, whether or not any person requestеd or received psychiatric treatment,
{¶ 72} So, in theory, to obtain a civil stalking protection order under the majority‘s reading of the statute, a petitioner would have to establish a belief—presumably a reasonable belief—that conduct that did not cause mental distress in the present would nonetheless cause a substantial incapacity or a condition requiring mental-health treatment in the future. But in practice, such a belief is not susceptible of proof.
{¶ 73} We also must be mindful of the consequences of the majority‘s reading of the statute. Under the majority‘s construction, the offense of menacing by stalking requires proof of another person‘s belief that the offender will cause physical harm or mental distress. That means that an offender does not engage in menacing by stalking if he or she causes actual mental distress to another persоn in the present without also creating the belief that the other person will suffer mental distress in the future—i.e., it would not be a crime to cause mental distress through a pattern of conduct. That is an absurd result.
Conclusion
{¶ 74} On one point, I agree with the majority—
{¶ 75} For these reasons, I dissent and would answer the certified conflict by concluding that
Z.J., pro se.
Darin Avery, for appellant.
Dave Yost, Attorney General, Mathura J. Sridharan, Solicitor General, and Jana M. Bosch, Deputy Solicitor General, urging affirmance for amicus curiae, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
__________________