This case concerns a § 1983 civil rights action brought by death row inmate Kenneth Smith challenging multiple aspects of Ohio's lethal injection protocol under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and seeking a stay of his July 2011 execution. The court granted Smith's motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, staying the execution until further order. The core reasoning was that Smith demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on his Equal Protection claim because Ohio's policy of following its written execution protocol except when it does not creates unconstitutional inconsistencies, particularly in medical team composition, IV access procedures, and accommodations for inmates' medical conditions.
This case involved former manager and assistant manager employees of Monro Muffler Brake Inc. who sued the company alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act for failing to pay overtime for hours worked over forty per week. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, finding that the company's compensation plan qualified for the Section 7(i) exception to the FLSA's overtime requirements because it constituted a bona fide commission rate. The reasoning centered on the fact that the employees' pay was tied to the controllable profits of the stores they managed, more than half of their compensation came from commissions, and their regular rate exceeded one and one-half times the minimum wage. As a result, the plaintiffs' motion for conditional class certification was denied as moot.
In this case, plaintiffs sued a temporary employee placement service for breaching an oral contract by failing to conduct a background check on an employee who stole approximately $203,000 from them. A jury found for the plaintiffs and awarded $65,533.02 in damages. The court then considered whether to offset this award by amounts the plaintiffs had received from settlements with their bank, insurance company, and a judgment against the thief and her husband. The court decided that setoff was appropriate under Ohio law to prevent double recovery, as the third-party payments exceeded the jury award, resulting in a judgment of zero dollars for the plaintiffs.
In Stack v. Karnes, plaintiff Charles Stack sued Franklin County and its Board of Commissioners under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that jail staff ignored his repeated requests for insulin medication as a diabetic after his 2009 arrest, causing injuries in violation of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion to dismiss. It denied dismissal against Franklin County, reasoning that the county's lack of sui juris status under Ohio Rev. Code § 301.22 does not bar a Monell claim based on an alleged policy or custom of inadequate medical training. It granted dismissal against the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, holding that the board lacks authority over jail operations (which rest with the sheriff) and cannot face respondeat superior liability.
This case involved a participant in an ERISA-governed employee health benefit plan who sought full reimbursement for knee surgery costs at an out-of-network hospital after receiving pre-certification, alleging entitlement to in-network rates under the plan or exceptions, plus claims for failure to disclose plan documents and promissory estoppel. The court granted the plan defendants' motion for judgment on the administrative record, denying additional benefits under ERISA, granted their summary judgment on the promissory estoppel claim, and partially granted the plaintiff's summary judgment on the non-disclosure claim by awarding statutory penalties of $17,600 for untimely document provision while denying related attorney fees. The core reasoning centered on the plan's explicit terms limiting coverage, the absence of bad faith or other factors warranting fees, and application of ERISA's penalty provisions based on the number of days documents were withheld.
In Dorsey v. Banks, a state prisoner convicted of one count of rape and three counts of gross sexual imposition petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, raising five claims including insufficient evidence, inadequate notice and double jeopardy protections due to ambiguous indictment counts and jury instructions, Confrontation Clause violations, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of counsel. The court denied a motion by the local prosecuting attorney to intervene and, after de novo review, granted a conditional writ on the second claim while denying relief on the others. The core reasoning was that the lack of differentiation among counts, the ambiguous partial acquittal, and overbroad instructions deprived the petitioner of adequate notice, the ability to prepare a defense, and protection against double jeopardy, warranting retrial within ninety days or release, whereas the remaining claims lacked merit under applicable constitutional standards.
