Ninth District Court of Appeals Opinions Released on 4.3.2013

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Appellate District released two opinions on April 3, 2013. Both opinions were authored by Judge Jennifer Hensal, who joined the Court this past January. The opinions were for cases heard by the Summit County Common Pleas Court. The opinions were:

Wilcox v. Tabler, 2013-Ohio-1321, which reversed the trial court's granting of a motion for summary judgment. The plaintiff/appellant was a tenant living in a rented house. She slipped on water in the home's basement while she was doing laundry. She alleged that the defendant/appellee was negligent and that he violated duties created by the Ohio Revised Code and the Codified Ordinances of the City of Akron.

The Court of Appeals found that the trial court erred in requiring that the plaintiff/appellant had to produce evidence of a citation or expert witness testimony to establish there was a Code violation. The Court of Appeals essentially found that the circumstantial evidence in the record established an issue of fact regarding the Code violation.

State v. Sauto, 2013-Ohio-1320, which affirmed the defendant/appellant's conviction for unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. The appellant alleged that the trial court erred in allowing the State to amend the indictment alleging that the conduct took part during a 19 day period and not on a single day. The Court of Appeals noted that the amendment did not change the nature or identity of the offense and therefore held that there was no error.

The appellant also alleged that the trial court erred in not giving her a continuance after allowing the State to amend the indictment and in not granting a mistrial. The Court of Appeals rejected both of these assignments of error.