Lipscomb v. London Correctional Institute (1994), 96 Ohio App.3d 245, cert denied 71 Ohio St.3d 1436. Requirement under statute governing appeals of administrative decisions to court of common pleas that appellant file deposit with agency based upon anticipated cost of preparation of administrative transcript does not violate due process guarantees; requirement is not jurisdictional, and court may allow late filing of deposit or relieve indigent litigant from requirement.

Green Local Teachers Association v. Blevins (1987), 43 Ohio App.3d 71. Where teachers are mistakenly overpaid, the overpayments may be recovered from the teachers' biweekly paychecks through unilateral deductions consistent with Ohio statutory law and the due process clauses of the federal and state constitutions.

Shearer v. Cuyahoga County Hospital (1986), 34 Ohio App.3d 59. A public employee does not have a property right in continued status as a classified civil servant; a public employee who once was, but is no longer, a classified civil servant may be discharged without a hearing (position was statutorily excepted from the classified service during employee's tenure).

Lawrence v. Edwin Shaw Hospital (1986), 34 Ohio App.3d 137. County hospital employees laid off subsequent to the enactment of R.C. 124.11(A)(20), which places county hospital employees appointed under R.C. 339.03 and 339.06 into the unclassified civil service, are not thereby subjected to an unconstitutional taking of property without compensation, nor to an unconstitutional impairment of contract rights, nor to a retroactive application of the statute, nor to a violation of the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Ohio and United States Constitutions.

Adkins v. Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney (NO DATE), Montgomery Co., No. 92-3995, unreported. Service of a 124.34 order, or "furnishing," is accomplished when the order is actually received, subject to reasonable provisions for failure of delivery, as in the Civil Rules. View Common Pleas Decision | View SPBR Order

Adkins v. Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney (NO DATE), Montgomery Co., No. 92-3995, unreported. Service is furnished when the order is actually delivered and the return receipt is received by the filing party; to hold otherwise would allow for the possible loss of the right to appeal because the certified mail was not delivered within the ten-day period. View Common Pleas Decision | View SPBR Order

Solsman v. Ohio Dept. of Administrative Services (Feb. 29, 1996), Franklin Co., No. 95CVF08-5696, unreported. A reclassification requires notice pursuant to R.C. 124.14 only when the duties to be performed under the new class are sufficiently different; in other words, when there is a genuine reclassification. View Common Pleas Decision | View SPBR Order

Ward v. Attorney General (Sept. 8, 1995), Clermont Co., No. 94CV0268, unreported. Mailing of a removal order by certified mail, return receipt requested, through the United States postal service constitutes sufficient notification under O.A.C. 124-3-02 even if appellant does not actually sign for or receive the notice within the time required to perfect an appeal. View Common Pleas Decision

Ward v. Attorney General (Sept. 8, 1995), Clermont Co., No. 94CV0268, unreported. Certified mail delivery may occur through a private organization or contractor such as Federal Express; O.A.C. 124-3-02, in contrast to Civ. R. 4.1, does not require for R.C. 124.34 orders, that certified mail be placed in the United States mail. View Common Pleas Decision

Clark v. Ohio Dept. of Transportation (Aug. 16, 1993), Fayette App. No. CA93-03-009, unreported, 1993 WL 306763. Probationary civil service employment does not constitute a legitimate claim of entitlement to be accorded procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Walton v. Montgomery County Welfare Dept. (1982), 69 Ohio St.2d 58, syllabus.

Rapier v. Darke County Board of MR/DD (Mar. 10, 1993), Franklin Co., No. 92-CV-09-7589, unreported. The full scope of due process does not extend to short suspensions; the state personnel board of review has no jurisdiction under R.C. 124.34 to hear an appeal of a three-day suspension and no legal authority to modify the law as written by the General Assembly. View Common Pleas Decision

Evans v. Broadview Developmental Center (Oct. 16, 1990), PBR 90-REM-04-0171. An interim part-time employee has a right to the term of employment whose parameters were determined by the disability of the incumbent; as a classified employee, the interim part-time employee was entitled to an R.C. 124.34 order setting forth the reasons for his dismissal, as a minimal requirement of due process. View SPBR Order

    A. Pre-Disciplinary/Pre-Termination Hearings

Loudermill v. Cleveland Board of Education (1983) 721 F.2d 550. The compelling private interest in retained government employment, combined with substantial safeguard of presenting evidence before dismissal, outweighed added administrative burdens of pretermination process that would have been imposed upon municipalities; thus, failure of municipality to afford public employees an opportunity to present evidence challenging proposed discharges violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

Loudermill v. Cleveland Board of Education (1983) 721 F.2d 550. Failure of municipalities to hold pretermination hearings did not violate protected liberty interests of individual who was discharged for failure to pass an eye examination and individual discharged because he had been convicted of a crime approximately twelve years earlier since failure to pass an eye examination could not be characterized as stigmatizing and second individual failed to allege that reasons for his dismissal were published, a prerequisite to any liberty interest claim.

Loudermill v. Cleveland Board of Education (1983) 721 F.2d 550. Thirty-day statutory period in which Ohio law required posttermination hearings to be held for public employees did not give rise to a procedural entitlement; however, due process requires that a hearing be held not just in a meaningful manner, but also at a meaningful time.

Loudermill v. Cleveland Board of Education (1983) 721 F.2d 550. Delay in a posttermination hearing must be excessive or unreasonable before federal due process is denied; delays of three months and eight months did not deprive employees of due process, although hearings were not held within thirty-day statutory period provided for by Ohio law.

Kennedy v. Marion Correctional Institution (1994), 69 Ohio St.3d 20. An employee's due process rights are not violated by a lack of prehearing discovery and formal presentation of evidence at his pre-disciplinary hearing, where the employee is provided a full post-disciplinary evidentiary hearing. View Court of Appeals Decision | View SPBR Order

Local 4501, Communication Workers of America v. Ohio State University (1990), 49 Ohio St.3d 1; U.S. cert denied 497 U.S. 1025. A classified civil servant employee of the state of Ohio must be afforded a pretermination disciplinary hearing; however, such hearing need not be elaborate, but must afford the employee notice and the opportunity to have an explanation of the employer's charges and evidence against him, and an opportunity to present his side of the story (Loudermill applied and followed).

Local 4501, Communication Workers of America v. Ohio State University (1990), 49 Ohio St.3d 1; U.S. cert denied 497 U.S. 1025. A classified civil service employee of the State of Ohio does not have a constitutional due process right to have a stenographic record or a tape recording made of a pretermination disciplinary hearing.

Mowery v. Adams (1994), 95 Ohio App.3d 116. State employee was not deprived without due process of property interest in his employment when he was suspended for thirteen days; fact that predeprivation hearing was informal did not compel finding that employee was denied due process, and employee received notice of charges against him, explanation of state's evidence, opportunity to present his side of the story, and postdeprivation process in form of appeal to state personnel board of review, where he was given opportunity to present evidence on merits of his case and to cross-examine state's witnesses.

Hawkins v. Marion Correctional Institute (1990), 62 Ohio App.3d 863. Statute granting procedural rights to subjects of investigations did not require transcription of stenographic notes taken at the employee's pretermination hearing.

Seltzer v. Cuyahoga County Dept. of Human Services (1987), 38 Ohio App.3d 121. A classified civil servant who is about to be discharged is entitled to oral or written notice of the charges against him, an explanation of the employer's evidence, and an opportunity to be heard before he is discharged, coupled with post-termination administrative procedures as provided by R.C. 124.34. View Court of Appeals Decision

Fairley v. State Personnel Board of Review (1986), 29 Ohio App.3d 110. An employee in the classified civil service may not be discharged without the benefit of a pretermination hearing, although the pretermination hearing need not be elaborate; something less than a full evidentiary hearing is sufficient prior to adverse administrative action.

Csanyi v. Cuyahoga County Commissioners (1986), 29 Ohio App.3d 37. The failure to provide a classified government employee with pretermination notice and an opportunity to respond to an order of removal is a violation of due process and constitutes reversible error.

Valan v. Cuyahoga County Sheriff (1985), 26 Ohio App.3d 166. A civil service employee may not be discharged consistent with federal procedural due process rights unless the employee is afforded a pretermination hearing, and a violation of that right cannot be cured by the state's post-termination process; the violation of a procedural due process right is actionable for nominal damages without proof of actual injury.

Cain v. Geauga County Board of MR/DD (Aug. 20, 1991), PBR 91-REM-02-0124; aff'd (Sept. 17, 1991), Full Board. Unauthenticated copies of a position description and introduction of a policy manual, which appellant testified he had not received prior to his pre-disciplinary conference, were insufficient to establish knowledge or existence of a duty of care. View SPBR Order

Drescher v. Cuyahoga County Dept. of Human Services (Aug. 15, 1990), PBR 89-RED-11-0644. An appointing authority's decision of the penalty to be imposed upon appellant that was made prior to a pre-disciplinary hearing does not merit the disaffirmance of a reduction action even though it denies appellant sufficient due process under Loudermill v. Cleveland Board of Education (1983), 721 F.2d 550; appellant's property interest, as a public employee, is in continued employment rather than in employment in a particular position. View SPBR Order

    B. Sufficiency of Notice of Charges

Seltzer v. Cuyahoga County Dept. of Human Services (1987), 38 Ohio App.3d 121. A public employer which intends to discharge a classified civil servant must provide the subject employee with legally sufficient notice of an impending loss of his property interest so as to afford the employee an opportunity to respond prior to termination. View Court of Appeals Decision

State, ex rel. Scharlotte v. East Franklin Local School District Board of Education (1978), 63 Ohio App.2d 1. Deliberate evasion of receipt of a notice is an affirmative defense but is a question of fact and therefore must be sufficient evidence to support the trial court's finding that the employee did just that.

State, ex rel. Ashbaugh v. Bahr (1941), 68 Ohio App. 308. Where a written notice of removal of a civil service employee for "misconduct unbecoming an employee of the civil service commission," sets forth facts upon which such misconduct is based, in answer to which the employee files an intelligent explanation of the reasons for her conduct, such notice is sufficient to apprise the employee of the facts comprising the reason for her removal and is valid.

Davis v. Western Reserve Psychiatric Center (Sept. 29, 1993), Summit App. No. 15862, unreported, 1993 WL 379057. Evidence that a party had notice of a final appealable order fulfills the constitutional requirement of "reasonable notice"; even if appellant did not receive a copy of his removal order, he had actual notice of his termination when appellee failed to schedule him for work or deliver paychecks to him. View SPBR Order

Lee v. Summit County Sheriff (Apr. 7, 1993), Summit App. No. 15828, unreported, 1993 WL 99870. Failure by an appointing authority to comply with the filing requirements for a notice of removal, contained in R.C. 124.34, constitutes reversible error sufficient to result in a disaffirmance of the removal. View Court of Appeals Decision | View SPBR Order

In re Appeal of Wilkerson (Apr. 27, 1984), Montgomery App. No. CA-8530, unreported. Misfeasance, malfeasance, non-feasance and misconduct in office are broad, general concepts designed to include additional violations for removal other than those specifically enumerated; misconduct in office implies that misconduct off duty is already included in the language of R.C. 505.49. View Court of Appeals Decision

Renshaw v. City of Cleveland (May 7, 1981), Cuyahoga App. No. 43141, unreported, 1981 WL 4934. A civil service employee is entitled to notice of the alleged grounds of his discharge and an opportunity to be heard in his own defense prior to discharge.

In re Appeal of University of Akron (NO DATE), Summit App. No. 276-676, unreported. As long as the employee is advised of the nature of the charges, the ground or grounds need not be stated in the notice.

Traub v. Warren County Board of Commissioners (Jan. 23, 1996), Franklin Co., No. 95CVF05-3556, unreported. An appointing authority's failure to provide an employee with a copy of county policy regarding the use of sick leave does not result in a lack of notice to the employee that his conduct was improper where the applicable section of the Revised Code is not materially different from county policy and clearly does not cover the employee's misuse of sick leave; the employee is presumed to know the statute. View Common Pleas Decision | View SPBR Order

Conn v. Warren County Auditor (Dec. 6, 1994), Franklin Co., No. 94CVF-03-1978, unreported. O.A.C. 124-1-02 defines "notice" as "the date of receipt by the employee, in writing, of the action. If the employee did not receive a written notification, then 'notice' means the date of actual implementation of the action." View Common Pleas Decision

Williams v. Ohio Dept. of Transportation (Sept. 25, 1985), Madison Co., No. 85CV-02-022, unreported. Where the R.C. 124.34 order removing employee from his position charges him with violation of the criminal felony of carrying a concealed weapon but fails to state specifically the statutory grounds for his removal, the notice of removal is sufficient, as a matter of law, to apprise the employee of the reasons for removal; liberal discovery provided the employee an opportunity to ascertain the statutory grounds for removal if he felt such specificity were required. View Common Pleas Decision