State ex rel. Esrati v. Dayton Metro Library

[Cite as State ex rel. Esrati v. Dayton Metro Library, 2021-Ohio-3753.]
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
MONTGOMERY COUNTY
[STATE EX REL.] DAVID ESRATI :
:
Plaintiff-Appellant : Appellate Case No. 29050
:
v. : Trial Court Case No. 2018-CV-560
:
DAYTON METRO LIBRARY, et al. : (Civil Appeal from
: Common Pleas Court)
Defendants-Appellees :
:
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OPINION
Rendered on the 22nd day of October, 2021.
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DAVID ESRATI, 113 Bonner Street, Dayton, Ohio 45410
Plaintiff-Appellant, Pro Se
MATHIAS H. HECK, JR. by NATHANIEL S. PETERSON, Atty. Reg. No. 0095312,
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office, Appellate
Division, Montgomery County Courts Building, 301 West Third Street, 5th Floor, Dayton,
Ohio 45422
Attorney for Defendants-Appellees
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EPLEY, J.
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{¶ 1} Relator-Appellant David Esrati appeals from a judgment of the Montgomery
County Court of Common Pleas, which denied his motion for sanctions and motion
requesting damages and a hearing in his lawsuit against the Dayton Metro Library and its
executive director, Tim Kambitsch (collectively, “Dayton Library”). For the reasons that
follow, the trial court’s judgment will be affirmed.
I. Facts and Procedural History
{¶ 2} On August 19, 2017, Esrati was ejected from Dayton Library for videotaping
on the premises. The incident was captured by Dayton Library’s video surveillance
system. That same day, Esrati verbally requested that Dayton Library provide the video
surveillance footage of his ejectment, which he claimed was a public record. His counsel
then sent a second request via email on August 31, 2017.
{¶ 3} On September 19, 2017, Dayton Library emailed Esrati’s counsel that it
would not be providing the requested surveillance video. Dayton Library asserted that the
video was not subject to release under the Ohio Public Records Act because the video
footage was a “library record” and/or “patron information” within the meaning of R.C.
149.432. Discussion about the public records request was then postponed because Esrati
and Dayton Library were in the process of negotiating a resolution. After the negotiations
failed, Esrati made a third request for the surveillance footage on November 15, 2017.
Dayton Library again denied the request.
{¶ 4} On February 1, 2018, Esrati filed a petition for a writ of mandamus against
Dayton Library, alleging violations of the Ohio Public Records Act. Dayton Library
responded with a motion to dismiss pursuant to Civ.R. 12(B)(6). The trial court denied the
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motion to dismiss, and both parties filed motions for summary judgment.
{¶ 5} The trial court granted Esrati’s motion for summary judgment, denied Dayton
Library’s motion for summary judgment, and granted Esrati’s request for a writ of
mandamus. The court reasoned that the surveillance video at issue was a public record
and did not fall within the “library records” exemption under R.C. 149.432(A)(2)(b). The
trial court ordered Dayton Library to turn over the surveillance video to Esrati within 90
days and to “edit the video” only to the extent “necessary to obscure the faces of other
library patrons in the video.” Further, it required Dayton Library to reimburse Esrati for the
court costs of the action and awarded him $1,000, the maximum statutory damages under
R.C. 149.43(C)(2). The trial court did not, however, award Esrati attorney fees, finding
that Dayton Library did not act unreasonably.
{¶ 6} The trial court scheduled a follow-up hearing for January 30, 2020. At that
hearing, Esrati raised concerns that the videos were not time coded. Dayton Library’s
attorneys posited that the video software could not both blur the faces of the patrons and
overlay time codes. The court entered an order clarifying which camera angles were to
be provided to Esrati and gave Dayton Library 30 days to comply. The court did not order
time codes.
{¶ 7} Dayton Library filed a notice of compliance on February 27, 2020. According
to the record, Dayton Library provided a total of 58 angles from the video footage and
redacted the other patrons’ faces per court order. The videos did not have time codes
overlaid, but each file was given a name containing the date and time.
{¶ 8} On September 25, 2020, Esrati, now appearing pro se and upset that the
provided surveillance footage was still not time coded to his liking, filed a motion for
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sanctions alleging that Dayton Library’s statements regarding the surveillance footage
capabilities were false and amounted to frivolous conduct. He contended that the video
extraction software could, in fact, both redact faces and provide an overlaid time code.
{¶ 9} On December 30, 2020, Esrati filed a “motion requesting damages and
hearing motion for sanction.” He asserted that it had been 1,229 days since he originally
requested the video surveillance footage and that, because of this alleged delay, he was
unable to comply with filing deadlines in a federal civil rights case he wished to pursue.
He also alleged that the “delays and lies in court amount to a conspiracy between the
Prosecutors [sic] Office, the Library, and [the trial] Court to damage my integrity and cause
personal financial hardship.” Motion at 4. He asked for “damages to my reputation, waste
of my time, and as the victim of a state-run criminal organization, the Montgomery County
Prosecutors [sic] office.”
{¶ 10} The trial court denied Esrati’s motions on February 5, 2021, finding that the
motion was time-barred by statute, that Dayton Library had not engaged in frivolous
conduct, that Esrati had not been negatively affected by Dayton Library’s actions, that
there were no grounds for contempt of court, and that Civ.R. 11 was inapplicable to the
case. It did not, however, give any reasons for denying Esrati’s motion for damages and
a hearing.
{¶ 11} Esrati has appealed that judgment.
II. The trial court did not abuse its discretion
{¶ 12} In his brief, Esrati does not list any assignments of error as required by
App.R. 16. However, he does lodge many complaints, including his issues with: (1) the
statutory 10-day time window of Sunshine Laws; (2) the R.C. 2323.51(B)(1) time filing
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requirement; (3) the Prosecutor’s Office’s representing Dayton Library; (4) his request for
Civ.R. 60 relief; and (4) attorneys and pro se litigants being treated dissimilarly vis-à-vis
attorney fees. While Esrati’s appeal could justifiably be dispatched for not adhering to the
Appellate Rules, we infer that he is challenging the trial court’s denials of his motion for
sanctions and motion requesting damages and a hearing. Esrati’s additional issues are
outside the scope of the trial court’s February 5, 2021 decision (i.e., the judgment on
appeal) and we will not address them. See, e.g., State v. Brandon, 2d Dist. Clark No.
2019-CA-53, 2020-Ohio-5406, ¶ 22 (issues outside the scope of the judgment on appeal
were not properly before the court); State v. Baumgartner, 6th Dist. Erie No. E-07-034,
2008-Ohio-5794, ¶ 10.
Motion for sanctions under R.C. 2323.51
{¶ 13} In his “motion requesting damages and hearing motion for sanction,” Esrati
claimed that he was entitled to sanctions pursuant to R.C. 2323.51. The trial court,
however, found the motion to be untimely. We agree with the trial court.
{¶ 14} R.C. 2323.51(B)(1) states that a party adversely affected by frivolous
conduct may file a motion for an “award of court costs, reasonable attorney’s fees, and
other reasonable expenses incurred in connection with the civil action” at any time not
more than thirty days after the entry of a final judgment in the matter. The term “final
judgment” as used in the statute is synonymous with the term “final appealable order.”
State ex rel. DiFranco v. S. Euclid, 144 Ohio St. 3d 571, 2015-Ohio-4915, 45 N.E.3d 987,
¶ 10. When a motion for sanctions under R.C. 2323.51 is filed out of time, the motion can
be “denied on that ground alone.” Id. at ¶ 9.
{¶ 15} In this case, Esrati filed his motion for sanctions on September 25, 2020.
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When the motion was filed, the most recent final appealable order on the docket was the
trial court’s summary judgment decision, filed on July 29, 2019 – 424 days prior ̶ and
thus it was past the 30-day threshold. Even using the most recent prior order (one that
was not final and appealable), which was filed by the court on January 31, 2020, Esrati
was about six months past the deadline. His motion did not meet the 30-day requirement
imposed by R.C. 2323.51(B)(1), and the trial court correctly overruled the motion as
untimely.
{¶ 16} Contrarily, if the motion for sanctions under R.C. 2323.51(B)(1) could have
survived the timeliness issue, we would affirm the trial court’s denial of the motion on the
merits. “On appeal, [this court] will not reverse a lower court’s decision on whether to
award sanctions under R.C. 2323.51 absent a showing of an abuse of discretion.” State
ex rel. Bell v. Madison Cty. Bd. of Commrs., 139 Ohio St.3d 106, 2014-Ohio-1564, 9
N.E.3d 1016, ¶ 10, citing State ex rel. Striker v. Cline, 130 Ohio St.3d 214, 2011-Ohio-
5350, 957 N.E.2d 19, ¶ 11. To prove such an abuse, Esrati must demonstrate that the
trial court’s denial of sanctions was unreasonable, arbitrary, or unconscionable. State ex
rel. DiFranco at ¶ 13.
{¶ 17} Esrati must demonstrate that Dayton Library’s conduct regarding the
surveillance video was frivolous. “Frivolous conduct, as contemplated by R.C.
2323.51(A)(2)(a), is judged under an objective, rather than a subjective standard, and
must involve egregious conduct.” (Citations omitted.) State ex rel. DiFranco at ¶ 15. After
examining the record, we conclude, as the trial court did, that Dayton Library’s conduct
did not rise to the level of “frivolous.”
{¶ 18} Esrati’s primary argument for sanctions was that Dayton Library acted in
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bad faith in delaying the delivery of the surveillance video and by not producing a time-
stamped copy of the footage that met his requirements. The problem with his argument,
though, is that Dayton Library complied with all the trial court’s orders. Each time the trial
court issued an order requiring Dayton Library to produce the public records, it did so
within the prescribed time frame. The record also reflects a good-faith attempt by Dayton
Library to comply with each trial court order; in one case, Dayton Library went above and
beyond what was required of it and turned over 58 camera angles instead of the requisite
56.
{¶ 19} Esrati, however, continues to argue that he should have been given
surveillance footage with a time-stamp overlay, although the trial court did not order any
time code on any video. Nevertheless, each video file prepared by Dayton Library was
given a name containing the date and time, and the trial court found Dayton Library’s
explanation as to why it was unable to provide a time-coded overlaid copy of the video(s)
credible.
{¶ 20} Based on our review of the record, we cannot say that the trial court abused
its discretion when it overruled Esrati’s motion for sanctions pursuant to R.C. 2323.51.
Motion for sanctions under Civ.R. 11
{¶ 21} The trial court also held that Civ.R. 11 was inapplicable to the facts at issue
in Esrati’s motion for sanctions.
{¶ 22} Civ.R. 11 states that the signature of an attorney constitutes a certificate by
the attorney that he or she has read the document, believes there is good ground to
support it, and that the document is not interposed for delay. Civ.R. 11. If a party willfully
violates this Rule, he or she, upon motion of a party or the court, may be subject to
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“appropriate action, including an award to the opposing party of expenses and reasonable
attorney fees incurred in bringing any motion under this Rule.” Id.{¶ 23} It is important to stress that a purported violation of this part of Civ.R. 11
must be done willfully to incur sanctions from the trial court. We have previously stated
that “Civ.R. 11 employs a subjective bad-faith standard to invoke sanctions.” Swartz v.
Hendrix, 2d Dist. Darke No. 2010-CA-18, 2011-Ohio-3422, ¶ 11. Because the Rule uses
the phrase “may be subject to appropriate action,” the imposition of sanctions is at the
discretion of the court and is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. Id.{¶ 24} In this case, Esrati never specified which requirement he believed Dayton
Library violated (i.e., 1. the filing was not read; 2. there were not good grounds to support
it; or, 3. it was interposed for delay), and he did not specify in which filing the alleged Rule
violation occurred. The trial court assumed Esrati was referring to Dayton Library’s “notice
of compliance,” filed on January 31, 2020. It then found that Esrati had not provided
evidence that Dayton Library was in violation of any of the three requirements and further
stated that there was no evidence that any potential violation was made willfully or in bad
faith.
{¶ 25} We agree. Assuming, as the trial court did, that Esrati was referring to the
“notice of compliance,” there was no evidence that the attorney for Dayton Library did not
read the filing, did not believe there was good ground to support it, or that it was filed for
purposes of delay. Further, even if one of the three requirements applied, Esrati had not
provided any evidence that any of the alleged conduct by Dayton Library was “willful”
conduct, instead of merely negligent. See Ponder v. Kamienski, 9th Dist. Summit No.
2370, 2007-Ohio-5035, ¶ 36 (if any of the Civ.R. 11 requirements are not satisfied, the
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trial court must then determine if the violation was willful as opposed to merely negligent).
{¶ 26} There is nothing in the record that would indicate Dayton Library violated
Civ.R. 11, let alone willfully so. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting
Esrati’s motion for sanctions under Civ.R. 11.
Motion requesting a hearing, damages, and costs
{¶ 27} On December 30, 2020, Esrati filed his “motion requesting damages and
hearing motion for sanction.” The motion did not specify the amount of damages he
sought, or under what theory of law he was eligible, but it did express Esrati’s displeasure
with Dayton Library, the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office, and the trial court.
Esrati cited no authority that would enable the collection of damages, and hence, the trial
court construed the irregular motion as a second motion for sanctions and analyzed it
accordingly. There were no grounds for the trial court to award Esrati sanctions under
either R.C. 2323.51 or Civ.R. 11. The trial court did not abuse its discretion.
III. Conclusion
{¶ 28} The judgment of the trial court will be affirmed.
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HALL, J. and TUCKER, J., concur.
Copies sent to:
Mathias H. Heck, Jr.
Nathaniel S. Peterson
David Esrati
Hon. Gerald Parker