Ohio Supreme Court takes Columbus’s appeal in local gun law case

The Ohio Supreme Court has accepted an appeal from the City of Columbus in a dispute over local firearm ordinances. In 2022 the city approved a handful of laws banning large capacity magazines and requiring safe storage of firearms in the home. Columbus officials argue their home rule authority gives them the latitude to enforce those provisions.

Several people decided to challenged the legislation in court, arguing longstanding state law preempts the city from passing local gun measures.

But the case is a peculiar one.

The first five challengers claimed to live in Franklin County, but filed the case in Delaware’s Court of Common Pleas. Those challengers have still not revealed their identities — even to the court under seal. After Columbus filed to have the case dismissed or transferred to Franklin County, the plaintiffs added one additional John Doe from Delaware County.

The Delaware County judge decided to let the Does pursue the case pseudonymously and placed a preliminary injunction on the city’s firearm laws. But when the city appealed to the circuit court, the three-judge panel turned them down. That preliminary injunction didn’t represent a “final appealable order,” they said.

The city continued its appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, and last week the justices agreed to take it up.

The city’s appeal

Attorneys for Columbus raised several arguments in their appeal. Among them, the trial court improperly relied on federal rulings and it shouldn’t have allowed the plaintiffs to bring the case without revealing anything about their identity. The Supreme Court sidestepped those claims.

Instead, the justices decided to focus on two questions that get at how a preliminary injunction works. The idea behind a preliminary injunction is to keep someone or something from taking an action while the court case plays out. It’s the court’s way of stopping something that’s potentially illegal from happening while it makes up its mind about whether or not it’s actually illegal.

But the city of Columbus argues that idea — maintaining the status quo — gets complicated when the injunction is applied to a legislative body. A preliminary injunction is meant to keep a party from suffering irreparable harm. But Columbus argues, “when a court enjoins the operation of a properly-enacted law, the judicial intrusion on the sovereignty of the legislature constitutes an irreparable harm.”

The city notes state and federal courts regularly stay their findings against a piece of legislation because keeping it from taking effect would violate that branch’s sovereignty. Columbus wonders aloud — why wouldn’t the same idea apply to a city?

“While that sovereignty differs in scope from that exercised by the General Assembly, the nature of that sovereignty is the same,” the city argues.

More fundamentally, Columbus questions the appeals court’s logic in turning down its case. The city contends appeals courts seem to be aligning behind the idea that because the injunction is only preliminary there’s been no irreparable harm. But Columbus insists that conclusion is “profoundly flawed, has no support in statute, and has never been adopted or blessed by (the Ohio Supreme) Court.”

State statute envisions the possibility of appealing a preliminary injunction. Which creates a problem with the appeals court interpretation: if injunctions maintain the status quo, and the maintaining the status quo means no irreparable harm has occurred, then that statute is becomes “a dead letter.”

“If an injunction that preserves the status quo is not immediately appealable simply because it does so, and if every injunction by definition preserves the status quo, then it logically follows that a preliminary injunction can never be a final appealable order,” the city argues.

The Does’ response

The six John and Jane Does in the case are represented by the conservative-leaning Buckeye Institute. Their court filing in response to the city’s appeal downplays the concerns about governments losing something by not being able to appeal a preliminary injunction.

The Does argue appeals courts have “generally” found that maintaining the status quo avoids harm “but that may not always be the case.”

They contend the standard to focus on is what happens after the final judgement, not along the way. A preliminary injunction, they argue, is only ripe for appeal if the party appealing the order would have “no meaningful and effective remedy” from an appeal after the court’s final decision.

They also argue the supposed harm suffered from suspending the city’s legislation is borne by third parties — the citizens — not the city itself.

To step back even further, the Does argue the city’s ordinances weren’t “duly enacted” in the first place. They argue with a state law already in place superseding the local gun laws, the city’s provisions were unconstitutional.

“There is no irreparable injury when the government acts unconstitutionally,” the Does add.

In an email, Buckeye Institute attorney David Tryon downplayed the appeal and emphasized the potential impact of the city’s ordinances on local gun owners. He described the legislation as “unlawful” argued their case has been able to “protect Columbus residents from the city’s illegal activity.”

“The city’s appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court is limited to the question of whether the preliminary injunction can be appealed before the trial court issues a final decision,” he added. “While this appeal is pending, the injunction remains in place, and Columbus residents are still protected from the city’s attempts to infringe on their constitutional rights.

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