Ohio Supreme Court Rules Judges, not Clerks of Court, determine which Public Records will be Available to the Public Online

Open access to court records is unquestionably a valued public policy in Ohio. The Ohio Constitution Article I Section 16, the open courts provision, makes clear that the right of access to courts includes access to the courts’ records. This principle had been reaffirmed by the Ohio Supreme Court in numerous decisions and the Rules of Superintendence.

But, does that mean all records must be published online? And if those records are the official documentation of the Court but the Clerk of Courts manages the website where the records are published, who gets to decide whether some records can be withheld from online publication?

The answer, according to decisions from both the First District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court, is: the Court.

The conflict started in May 2022, when Hamilton County Clerk of Courts, Pavan Parikh, announced he was removing from online access eviction records older than three years, citing an interest in protecting tenants from landlords or employers who might unfairly deny applicants housing or employment based on records the Clerk said could be misleading. Parikh did not discuss with, or seek approval from, the Hamilton County Municipal Court, whose records were removed from online access. The judges of the Municipal Court learned of the Clerk’s decision at the same time as other readers of the Cincinnati Enquirer when they read Parikh’s announcement. Hamilton County Clerk of Courts to remove older evictions from search.

The judges objected to this plan and sought to work with Parikh on a different approach. Ultimately, the judges issued an Administrative Order instructing Parikh to restore online access to the eviction records and not to take similar action without contacting the Court. When Parikh refused to comply with the Order, the Court advised him he could be held in contempt of court. At that point Parikh filed a Complaint for a writ of prohibition in the First District Court of Appeals to stop the Court from enforcing the Administrative Order and from holding him in contempt. In response, the judges counterclaimed, seeking a writ of mandamus that would order Parikh to rescind his May 2022 policy and comply with the Administrative order.

Because Parikh is also the Clerk of Courts for the First District, all judges of that court recused, and three judges of the Twelfth District were assigned to the case. The First District granted the municipal court judges’ motion for judgment on the pleadings as to Parikh’s petition for prohibition and granted the judges’ petition for mandamus.

When Parikh appealed this decision to the Ohio Supreme Court, the Ohio Clerk of Courts Association filed an amicus brief in support of the appeal.

In affirming the decision of the First District, the Ohio Supreme Court held that the decision to remove certain records from online access, even if the Clerk viewed such removal as in the best interests of the defendants in older eviction cases, was a decision to be made by the municipal court judges, not the clerk of courts. Despite the Clerk’s argument that the eviction records would still be available to the public, the Supreme Court pointed out that all parties recognized that people are less likely to go to the trouble to seek those records in person than to do an online search. Therefore, the removal was a restriction on open access to court records, and it was not the Clerk’s role to make that decision.