State ex rel. Wood v. McClelland
Annotate this Case
Justia Opinion Summary
Want to stay in the know about new opinions from the Supreme Court of Ohio?
Sign up for free summaries delivered directly to your inbox. Learn More ›
You already receive new opinion summaries from Supreme Court of Ohio. Did you know we offer summary newsletters for even more practice areas and jurisdictions? Explore them here.
Appellant filed a petition for a writ of prohibition seeking to prevent Appellees, a judge and magistrate on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, from exercising jurisdiction over a foreclosure action filed against a client that Appellant represented. The court of appeals granted summary judgment in favor of Appellees, concluding that Appellant lacked standing and that Appellant could not prevail on the merits even if he did have standing. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant lacked standing to bring this case, as lawyers do not have standing to bring claims in their own names based on violations of their clients’ rights.
Download PDF
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State ex rel. Wood v. McClelland, Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-3969.] 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. 2014-OHIO-3969 THE STATE EX REL. WOOD, APPELLANT, v. MCCLELLAND, JUDGE, ET AL., APPELLEES. [Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State ex rel. Wood v. McClelland, Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-3969.] Prohibition Writ sought to prevent judge from exercising jurisdiction over a lawsuit against relator s client Attorneys do not have standing to bring claims in their own names based on violations of their clients rights Court of appeals denial of writ affirmed. (No. 2013-1615 Submitted June 10, 2014 Decided September 18, 2014.) APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 09939, 2013-Ohio-3922. ____________________ Per Curiam. {¶ 1} Appellant, attorney John Wood, filed a petition for a writ of prohibition, naming himself as relator, to prevent appellees, Judge Robert C. McClelland and Magistrate Kevin C. Augustyn, from exercising jurisdiction over SUPREME COURT OF OHIO a lawsuit filed against a client that Wood represents. The Eighth District Court of Appeals denied the writ on the grounds that Wood lacked standing to file suit. We affirm. Background {¶ 2} Wood filed an original action for a writ of prohibition in the Eighth District Court of Appeals. He alleged that Judge McClelland was the assigned judge on Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas case No. CV-11-746293, a foreclosure action filed against defendant Lynda Hicks. In an attached affidavit, Wood identified himself as counsel to Hicks in the foreclosure case. {¶ 3} The petition alleged that the plaintiff in the foreclosure action did not have physical possession of the promissory note executed by Hicks. Wood concluded that Co-Relators [sic] are therefore patently and unambiguously without jurisdiction to consider the allegations of Count One of the Complaint. {¶ 4} The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On September 6, 2013, the court of appeals granted summary judgment in favor of Judge McClelland and Magistrate Augustyn for two reasons: because Wood lacked standing and because he could not prevail on the merits even if he did have standing. 2013-Ohio-3922, ¶ 8, 16. {¶ 5} Wood timely appealed. Legal analysis {¶ 6} A party lacks standing to invoke the jurisdiction of a court unless he or she has a real interest in the subject matter of the litigation Ê»in an individual or representative capacity. Fed. Home Loan Mtge. Corp. v. Schwartzwald, 134 Ohio St.3d 13, 2012-Ohio-5017, 979 N.E.2d 1214, ¶ 22, quoting State ex rel. Dallman v. Franklin Cty. Court of Common Pleas, 35 Ohio St.2d 176, 179, 298 N.E.2d 515 (1973). Wood does not allege any personal stake in the dispute between his client, Lynda Hicks, and the holder of the note. His 2 January Term, 2014 contention is that as Hicks s attorney, he is acting in a representative capacity and therefore has standing. {¶ 7} We have had little occasion to define what constitutes a representative capacity for standing purposes. In State ex rel. Battin v. Bush, 40 Ohio St.3d 236, 533 N.E.2d 301 (1988), we held that a guardian ad litem had standing in a representative capacity to file suit on behalf of a ward, based on R.C. 2111.14(A)(5), which expressly vests a guardian of the estate of a ward with the duty to bring suit to protect the ward s best interests. By contrast, the superintendent of a correctional facility has no authority, statutory or otherwise, to act as the legal representative for the inmates under his care and custody. Dallman at 179. {¶ 8} These holdings suggest that a representative must have a real interest in the subject matter of the litigation. See, e.g., Boulger v. Evans, 54 Ohio St.2d 371, 375, 377 N.E.2d 753 (1978) (noting the general principle that a fiduciary cannot appeal a judgment that does not affect him in his representative capacity). {¶ 9} In his merit brief, Wood cites Civ.R. 17(A) for the proposition that a representative may, at times, be a real party in interest. To the extent that Wood is suggesting that Civ.R. 17(A) creates standing, we rejected this claim in Schwartzwald, 134 Ohio St.3d 13, 2012-Ohio-5017, 979 N.E.2d 1214, ¶ 33 ( Civ.R. 17(A) does not address standing ). {¶ 10} In short, we agree with the numerous courts that have held that lawyers do not have standing to bring claims in their own names based on violations of their clients rights. See, e.g., State ex rel. Felson v. McHenry, 146 Ohio App.3d 542, 546, 767 N.E.2d 298 (1st Dist.2001); State ex rel. Brady v. Russo, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 89552, 2007-Ohio-3277, ¶ 14-15. {¶ 11} Alternatively, Wood argues that the lower court violated Civ.R. 17(A) by not allowing him reasonable time in which to substitute the real party in 3 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO interest as plaintiff. Here again, his argument is contrary to Schwartzwald, which held that if standing is lacking at the outset, the defect cannot be cured by a Civ.R. 17(A) substitution of parties. Id., ¶ 38. {¶ 12} The court of appeals also denied the petition because it rejected Wood s substantive argument on the merits. Wood argued that the foreclosure action against his client was filed by a plaintiff who lacked standing and was not the real party in interest. He sought a writ of prohibition on the theory that lack of standing was a jurisdictional defect. {¶ 13} Because we hold that Wood lacked standing to bring this case, we conclude that it was error for the court of appeals to decide the underlying legal issue, and we decline to address the topic. State v. Chappell, 127 Ohio St.3d 376, 2010-Ohio-5991, 939 N.E.2d 1234, ¶ 1, fn.1 (reaffirming our duty not to issue advisory opinions ). {¶ 14} Based on the foregoing, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. Judgment affirmed. O CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, FRENCH, and O NEILL, JJ., concur. ____________________ John Wood, pro se. Timothy McGinty, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Nora E. Graham, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellees. _________________________ 4
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
