Welcome back. This issue, the Ohio Supreme Court (FYI, a new justice was elected this week, so look for upcoming changes in the cases here and there) enforces a brand-new speed bump on the road to a records lawsuit, and the first driver to hit it is a name longtime readers will recognize. House Bill 265 did more than cut off inmate damages last year. It also gives every public office a formal last chance to fix a records dispute before anyone can sue. Our body camera story stays home in Ohio, where the state finally released the footage and the full investigative file from a Youngstown standoff that wounded an officer a year ago, and handled the long wait about as well as a long wait can be handled. And the Q&A comes from a police records supervisor with a question about Marsy’s Law.
Let’s get it going.
Court Case Review
State ex rel. Ames v. W. Geauga Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 2026-Ohio-4076 (Supreme Court of Ohio)
Ames. Brian Ames. Yes, that Brian Ames. Regular readers met him in Issue 110, suing Big Walnut schools over a deleted board meeting video. This is a new lawsuit against a different district, and he’s filed enough records and open meetings cases that court staff around northeast Ohio may even know him on sight. These types of requesters (not necessarily him, of course) are really just looking for a quick payday, so it figures he’d be the first requester the Supreme Court bounced under the new pre-suit notice rules.
In March 2025, Ames asked the West Geauga schools’ treasurer for the February check register. The board produced it within days but redacted student initials that appeared next to certain payments, citing federal student privacy law and Ohio’s version of it. Ames thought the redactions were improper and said he’d see them in court.
Which brings us to the part of the new law we haven’t covered much yet. Since April 9, 2025, a requester can’t just run to the courthouse. Under the amended R.C. 149.43(C)(1), he first has to serve the public office with a formal pre-suit complaint, on a form the Court of Claims publishes, the same way you’d serve any lawsuit. Think of it as a last-chance warning everyone has to file. The office then gets three business days to fix or otherwise address the problem, and the requester is barred from filing anything during that window. When he does file, he has to attach an affidavit swearing he served the complaint and waited it out for three business days.
Ames knew all this. He even told the board he’d be sending “the newly required notice shortly.” His pre-suit complaint arrived by certified mail on Monday, April 28. The treasurer wrote back the next day, saying the district stood by its redactions. Ames filed his mandamus action on Wednesday, April 30. Count it out, and that’s just two business days after delivery, with the day of receipt excluded from the count under the civil rules. The Eleventh District Court of Appeals dismissed the case as premature, and the Supreme Court affirmed.
