OHIO High court shows change in rulings with new majority
The court is showing a more evenhanded approach, the chamber said.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Outrage over Ohio Supreme Court decisions is starting to switch directions as a new court majority rules on issues closely watched by Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans complained for several years about a series of 4-3 rulings they said were anti-business and favored Democrats and their causes.
Though the court had a GOP majority on paper, two moderate Republicans sided with Democrats on decisions frequently enough to be dubbed "the Gang of Four" by their critics.
Justices Alice Robie Resnick and Francis Sweeney, both Democrats, and Republicans Andy Douglas and Paul Pfeifer angered business groups with rulings on insurance, school funding and the system for awarding damages to injury victims.
The rancor grew into a $4 million advertising campaign against Resnick launched by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce in 2000 in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat her.
Millions were also raised and spent in 2002 as former Lt. Gov. Maureen O'Connor, a Republican, won a seat left open by Douglas' retirement and GOP Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton held off a Democratic challenger.
4-3 opinions
Last year, Gov. Bob Taft appointed Cleveland Judge Terrence O'Donnell to the court, finally giving Republicans a real majority. Since then, the court has issued a handful of 4-3 opinions that for once have corporate interests pleased and Democrats, and particularly their trial attorney supporters, fuming.
"It's pretty clear there's been an attitudinal shift on the court," said Tony Turley, chairman of the Insurance Law committee of the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers.
In the first and most high-profile of those new majority rulings, the court in November decided that companies aren't liable for insurance claims by employees killed or injured in non-work-related accidents.
That overturned a 1999 decision reviled by insurance companies who claimed it generated lawsuits that would cost them $1.5 billion.
O'Connor's election to the court last year was supported in part by business groups upset with that 1999 ruling. O'Connor never said how she would rule but had criticized the court for exceeding its authority on some decisions.
Last month, the new 4-3 majority said insurance companies can require injured accident victims to repay the companies money they receive from financial settlements, regardless of whether the settlements cover all of a victim's expenses.
In related rulings in August and September, the court affirmed that a $1 million per-person limit on medical malpractice awards applies to a family's combined losses, rather than awarding separate claims to each person.
Balanced approach
The court is showing signs it will be more "evenhanded" in its approach to business decisions, according to the Ohio chamber.
"What we're looking for is an indication that the court is fair and reasonable and balanced," said Linda Woggon, the chamber's governmental affairs director.
There's little evidence that judges in Ohio or elsewhere are switching votes to pacify supporters, said Deborah Goldberg, Democracy Program Coordinator of the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit judicial advocacy group.
But the growing influence of money in court campaigns raises concerns, she said.
"The prospect you're going to face an extremely expensive campaign against you while you're on the bench -- they cannot help but have that in mind when they are reviewing cases," Goldberg said. "And the honest judges admit that."