YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals sided with Youngstown by dismissing a longstanding case involving a police detective sergeant’s request to have a hearing in front of the city’s civil service commission to consider him for a promotion.

The case involving Youngstown police Detective Sgt. Michael R. Cox dates back to an Aug. 15, 2018, lieutenant promotional exam and has twice been heard by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Cox can request the state’s high court hear his case for a third time. The court accepts a small percentage of cases for review.

In a June 27 ruling, Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney agreed with Cox that he deserved to have an evidentiary hearing in front of the city’s civil service commission to consider him for a promotion to police lieutenant.

Sweeney wrote that Cox was correct in asserting the commission committed a “clear error” in 2019 and repeated it in 2020 “when it did not convene the evidentiary hearing in (his) timely civil service appeal expressly mandated by the city’s civil service rules.”

City Deputy Law Director Adam Buente wrote in a June 28 motion for reconsideration, that Sweeney rejected, that the judge “is failing to apply the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling on this exact issue” and is “overstepping (her) jurisdiction.”

After Sweeney rejected the motion to reconsider on July 12, the city appealed July 29 to the 7th District.

In a 3-0 decision Thursday, the court of appeals agreed with the city. The 7th District threw out the case after taking only written arguments on whether to dismiss the appeal and not the merits of the case.

In response, Buente said: “The city law department is incredibly satisfied that the court of appeals abruptly dismissed Cox’s entire case without the parties even filing briefs on appeal. That is the appellate court’s way of saying that the city was not only correct this entire time, but that the city was so emphatically correct that the court of appeals did not even need briefs to dismiss this entire appeal.”

The appeals court wrote: “In this case, Cox’s motion for reconsideration came well after the statutory appeal period expired. The time to appeal the commission’s 2018 decision expired on Sept. 14, 2018, rendering Cox’s May 14, 2020, motion for reconsideration of that decision untimely by 609 days. Similarly, the time to appeal the commission’s 2019 decision expired on Aug. 16, 2019, rendering Cox’s May 14, 2020, motion for reconsideration of that decision untimely by 272 days.”

The court added: “The city argued Judge Sweeney patently and unambiguously lacked continuing jurisdiction over Cox’s administrative appeal based on the determination that Cox’s administrative appeal from the commission’s 2019 decision was untimely.”

S. David Worhatch, Cox’s attorney, argued in a July 29 motion that the court of appeals should dismiss the city’s appeal because Sweeney found his client’s appeal was timely and a final judgment wasn’t made.

After Buente’s motion for reconsideration was filed in Sweeney’s court, Worhatch wrote the deputy law director “never really grasped the theory that Cox advanced in his administrative appeal” and “it is possible that Cox’s theory of his case remains beyond the grasp of (Buente) even now.”

In response, Buente said, “From a personal perspective, attorney Worhatch accused me in a court filing of not being able to grasp his complex legal theories. I have no response to that personal attack, but I will be hanging the 7th District’s decision in my office.”

CASE HISTORY

The Supreme Court on Aug. 30, 2023, rejected the city’s arguments to dismiss the case. But it limited Cox’s arguments when it sent the case back to Sweeney.

Cox objects to how the city civil service commission ranked applicants for a lieutenant promotional test. Mayor Jamael Tito Brown promoted William Ward to lieutenant May 20, 2019, based on scores on a written civil service test given almost a year earlier.

Cox and other detective sergeants took a promotional test in June 2018. During the test, Cox objected that portions of it were based on an outdated examination book.

The commission certified the results of the test on Aug. 15, 2018, with Ward at the top of the list and Cox finishing third, two points behind Ward. Had four questions on the test been properly scored instead of each person getting credit for all of them, Cox states he would have tied for first and based on time of service he would have been No. 1 on the test.

Cox brought the case about Brown’s decision to the Supreme Court, which ruled Aug. 18, 2021, that the officer “did not file a timely appeal” opposing the 2019 commission’s decision. But the court also ruled that the commission didn’t provide “a final and appealable order” to him about the decision.

In that case, the court stated Cox had 30 days from July 17, 2019 — the day the commission approved the minutes from its June 19, 2019, meeting in which it determined Cox’s case was concluded — to appeal to common pleas court. Cox failed to do so in those 30 days. He instead pursued an appeal to the State Personnel Board of Review, which dismissed it.

Cox filed with the commission a “motion for entry of final appealable order and motion for reconsideration” on May 14, 2020. The commission told Cox at its June 17, 2020, meeting that it would take no further action and Cox filed a case on July 17, 2020, in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Sweeney determined May 16, 2022, that the commission “violated its own rule” by not issuing a “final and appealable order” and ordered the commission to do so in compliance with its own rules. The 7th District Court of Appeals agreed with Sweeney after the city appealed.

The city then filed an appeal June 28, 2022, with the Ohio Supreme Court to close out the Cox case contending the commission’s June 17, 2020, decision was a final order and Sweeney didn’t have jurisdiction.

In its Aug. 30, 2023, decision, the Supreme Court disagreed with the city’s argument regarding the civil service commission’s 2020 ruling and ordered the matter referred back to Sweeney. But the court told the judge she didn’t have jurisdiction over Cox’s 2019 administrative appeal because that had already been decided.

The Supreme Court determined Cox’s appeal of the June 17, 2020, commission decision was “timely.”

Sweeney ruled June 27 that Cox was correct in asserting the commission committed a “clear error” in 2019 and repeated it in 2020 when it did not convene an evidentiary hearing.

In its Thursday decision, the 7th District wrote: “The Supreme Court found that Judge Sweeney misread its previous decision” about the commission’s 2019 decision and regarding the 2020 decision, “the court concluded Judge Sweeney did not patently and unambiguously lack jurisdiction.”

But because the “commission had lost jurisdiction to reconsider either its 2018 or 2019 decisions long before Cox filed his May 14, 2020, motion” that latter decision, “which formed the basis of Cox’s administrative appeal to the trial court was a nullity,” the appeals court ruled. “Any judgment resulting from such a motion, including the trial court’s June 27 order that is the subject of this appeal, is likewise a nullity.”