Roe v. Boland

[Cite as Roe v. Boland, 2021-Ohio-4017.]
COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO
EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA
JANE ROE, ET AL., :
Plaintiffs-Appellees, :
No. 110497
v. :
DEAN BOLAND, :
Defendant-Appellant. :
JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED
RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: November 10, 2021
Civil Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas
Case No. JL-11-472146
Appearances:
Jonathan E. Rosenbaum, for appellees.
John Taylor, for appellant.
MARY J. BOYLE, A.J.:
Defendant-appellant Dean Boland (“Boland”) appeals from the trial
court’s May 11, 2021 judgment denying his motion to strike judgment lien and for
return of garnished funds plus interest. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the
trial court.
Procedural and Factual Background
At issue in this appeal is the status of the plaintiffs as Jane Roe and
Jane Doe (“Roe and Doe”), as opposed to using their actual names. Some
background context is necessary to fully understand the plaintiffs proceeding as
Roe and Doe plaintiffs. We find the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals summation of
the facts in Doe v. Boland (In re Boland), 946 F.3d 335 (6th Cir.2020), helpful:
The story begins in 2004, when Boland was serving as a technology
expert for Oklahoma and Ohio defendants charged with possessing
child pornography. Boland provided his clients a simple defense:
doubt. Here’s how it went. Boland created “before-and-after”
exhibits. The “before” exhibits were innocuous stock photographs
Boland found online of two young girls, Jane Doe and Jane Roe.
Boland manipulated (“morphed”) these photographs on his computer
to create the “after” exhibits: images of Doe and Roe engaged in sex
acts. If Boland could whip up doctored pornography this easily, the
argument went, then it is possible the pornography his clients
downloaded was doctored, too. In essence, the defense was that
there’s just no way of knowing whether real children are depicted in
pornography found on the internet.
Boland tried out his exhibits in an Oklahoma federal court. After he
testified, to his surprise, the prosecution turned toward him. The
“after” exhibits, prosecutors claimed, were actionable child
pornography. The judge interrupted that the exhibits were prepared
“at court order” but told Boland to delete the images anyway. Boland
did not comply. Instead, he called federal prosecutors in his
hometown, Cleveland, to see if they agreed his exhibits were illegal.
The prosecutors did not call back. So Boland shipped his computer
from Oklahoma to his mother in Ohio, fearing prosecution.
Nevertheless, he also continued using the exhibits in testimony in
Ohio courtrooms.
As it turns out, Boland’s exhibits were in fact illegal. 18 U.S.C.
[Section] 2256(8)(C) defines as “child pornography” any image that is
morphed to make it appear that a real minor is engaging in sexually
explicit conduct. Ohio federal prosecutors caught up with Boland and
offered him a pretrial diversion agreement in lieu of prosecution that
Boland signed. In the agreement, Boland admitted he violated federal
law (18 U.S.C. [Section] 2252A(a)(5)(B), specifically) in morphing the
images of Doe and Roe into child pornography.
Federal prosecutors identified Doe and Roe as part of their
investigation and told Doe and Roe’s parents what Boland had done.
The parents promptly sued Boland under the civil-remedy provision
of the federal child pornography statute, 18 U.S.C. [Section] 2255 that
provides minimum damages of $150,000 to victims of child
pornographers.1 Seeing as Boland admitted he violated the law, Doe
and Roe won a combined $300,000 judgment. We rejected all of
Boland’s challenges to criminal and civil liability. Doe v. Boland, 698
F.3d 877 (6th Cir.2012) (“Boland II”); Boland v. Holder, 682 F.3d 531(6th Cir.2012); Doe v. Boland, 630 F.3d 491 (6th Cir.2011) (“Boland
I”).
Id. at 337-338.
In 2011, Roe and Doe, filed this judgment lien action in the
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, General Division; the subject judgment
was the $300,000 judgment rendered in favor of the Roe and Doe plaintiffs and
against Boland in federal court. The record shows that the Roe and Doe plaintiffs
proceeded as Roe and Doe plaintiffs throughout the entirety of the litigation
concerning the matter at issue; that is, throughout the proceedings in the federal
district court, the federal circuit court, and the Cuyahoga County Court of Common
Pleas.
In this case, the plaintiffs garnished approximately $70,000 from
Boland in 2012. The garnished funds were placed in guardianship accounts with
the Cuyahoga County Probate Court under the victims’ actual names. The case
remained dormant from 2012 until 2021, when Boland filed the subject motion to
1There were four plaintiffs in the underlying litigation: Jane Roe, a minor, and her
“guardian and next friend”; and Jane Doe, a minor, and her “guardian and next friend.”
The two guardians and next friends were named with their actual names.
strike judgment lien and for return of garnished funds plus interest that the trial
court denied. Boland now appeals, raising the following two assignments of error
for our review:
Assignment of Error I: The court erred in its judgment entry by not
striking the defective certificate of judgment lien and failing to enter
an order that unnamed plaintiffs return the garnished funds plus
interest to defendant.
Assignment of Error II: The federal district court lacked personal
jurisdiction over the unnamed plaintiffs resulting in its orders being a
nullity and any judgment it entered unenforceable.
Law and Analysis
R.C. 2329.02 governs judgment liens and certificates of judgment
and provides in pertinent part as follows:
Any judgment or decree rendered by any court of general jurisdiction,
including district courts of the United States, within this state shall be
a lien upon lands and tenements of each judgment debtor within any
county of this state from the time there is filed in the office of the clerk
of the court of common pleas of such county a certificate of such
judgment, setting forth the court in which the same was rendered, the
title and number of the action, the names of the judgment creditors
and judgment debtors, the amount of the judgment and costs, the rate
of interest, if the judgment provides for interest, and the date from
which such interest accrues, the date of rendition of the judgment,
and the volume and page of the journal entry thereof.
No such judgment or decree shall be a lien upon any lands, whether or
not situated within the county in which such judgment is rendered
* * * until a certificate under the hand and official seal of the clerk of
the court in which the same is entered or of record, stating the date
and purport of the judgment, giving the number of the case, the full
names of the parties, plaintiff and defendant, and the volume and
page of the journal or record in which it is entered, or a certified copy
of such judgment, stating such facts, is filed and noted in the office of
the county recorder of the county in which the land is situated, and a
memorial of the same is entered upon the register of the last
certificate of title to the land to be affected.
(Emphasis added.)
It is Boland’s contention in his first assignment of error that the
certificate in this case was invalid because it did not list the full names of the
plaintiffs-creditors. In his second assignment of error, Boland contends that,
because the certificate was invalid, the federal district court lacked jurisdiction
over the plaintiffs, and any subsequent orders or judgments were unenforceable.
We begin our analysis with the second assignment of error.
The judgment from the federal district court was a “foreign
judgment” as defined by R.C. 2329.021: “‘foreign judgment’ means any judgment,
decree, or order of a court of the United States, or of any court of another state,
that is entitled to full faith and credit in this state.” A foreign judgment is subject
to collateral attack in Ohio only if there was no subject-matter or personal
jurisdiction to render the judgment under the law of the foreign state. Litsinger
Sign Co. v. Am. Sign Co., 11 Ohio St.2d 1, 227 N.E.2d 609 (1967).
Subject-matter jurisdiction is not at issue here. Rather, Boland
contends that the federal district court did not have personal jurisdiction over the
plaintiffs. The principles of personal jurisdiction apply to defendants, not
plaintiffs, however. See Novak v. Boyle, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 87165, 2005-
Ohio-5839, ¶ 7, citing Clark v. Connor, 82 Ohio St.3d 309, 695 N.E.2d 751 (1998);
State ex rel. Ruessman v. Flanagan, 65 Ohio St.3d 464, 605 N.E.2d 31 (1992);
State ex rel. Tempero v. Colopy, 173 Ohio St. 122, 180 N.E.2d 273 (1962). Boland is
contesting the trial court’s personal jurisdiction of the plaintiffs, rather than the
court’s personal jurisdiction over him; his challenge is misplaced.
In light of the above, the second assignment of error is without merit
and overruled.
We likewise find the first assignment of error to be without merit.
Although a challenge to personal jurisdiction, had it applied here, could generally
have been raised at any time, Boland’s other alleged irregularity in this case ─ that
the plaintiffs proceeded as Roe and Doe plaintiffs — was never raised at the trial-
court level in this case.2 It is well established that a party’s failure to raise an issue
at the trial-court level acts as a waiver of the issue on appeal. State ex rel. Zollner
v. Indus. Comm., 66 Ohio St.3d 276, 278, 611 N.E.2d 830 (1993), citing State ex
rel. Gibson v. Indus. Comm., 39 Ohio St.3d 319, 530 N.E.2d 916 (1988). Even had
it been raised, the garnishment in this case happened in 2012; Boland’s 2021
challenge to it is wholly untimely.
In light of the above, the first assignment of error is without merit
and overruled.
Judgment affirmed.
It is ordered that appellees recover from appellant costs herein taxed.
The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal.
2Boland’s only challenge at the trial-court level in this case was that the funds the
plaintiffs garnished were exempt because the source of the funds, i.e., a check to Boland,
was made payable to “Dean Boland,” rather than to “Dean Boland, L.L.C.,” as he had
requested. The trial court rejected his challenge.
It is ordered that a special mandate be sent to said court to carry this
judgment into execution.
A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule
27 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
MARY J. BOYLE, ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE
KATHLEEN ANN KEOUGH, J., and
EILEEN A. GALLAGHER, J., CONCUR