According to a New Jersey Court, the answer is yes, a step-mom may be called “Mom” by his/her step-child. While this conclusion seems surprising at first, the Court’s focus on what is in the child’s best interest, versus the parents’ best interest is persuasive.  In …

Last month, the United States District Court in Cincinnati held the Portsmouth Rental Dwelling Code (RDC) violated the Fourth Amendment insofar as it authorized warrantless administrative inspections. Facing an aging, dilapidated housing stock that was turning into rental properties, the …

In a recent decision from the Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals, a hard lesson was learned by a party…trial means trial. In this case, the Wife and her counsel did not appear for trial because the Wife’s counsel had …

We’ve all seen news stories involving police shootings. Sometimes those stories feature video taken by spectators, security cameras, or the cameras built into the dashboards of police cars. But, in the future, most video of police encounters will come from …

Effective September 15, 2015, the Franklin County Common Pleas Domestic Relations Division and Juvenile Branch adopted Parenting Coordination Rules.  As the Rules explain, parenting coordination is “a child-focused dispute resolution process ordered by the Court to assist parties in implementing …

Ohio is a “one party” consent state when it comes to recording a “wire, oral or electronic communication.” R.C. 2933.52(B)(4). That means if YOU are a party to the communication/conversation, you can record it without telling the other person you are recording. …

ames Holder was a passenger in a vehicle whose driver was arrested for OVI.   The arresting officer asked Holder if he could call someone to pick him up.  Holder stated that his  girlfriend would, and the officer then informed Holder …

On a mid-summer evening, a 911 call in Toledo reports “a guy walking down the street” with his dog “carrying a gun out in the open.”   Upon further inquiry from the dispatcher, it was determined to be a handgun, not …

The Ohio Supreme Court continued to grapple with the issue of overbroadness in public records requests under R.C. § 149.43 in its recent decision in State ex rel. Carr v. London Correctional, 2015-Ohio-2363. Carr involved a claim by a prison …

In a recent decision by the Tenth District (Franklin County) Court of Appeals, a party to a divorce action who was representing herself in a post-decree matter lost because she didn’t heed the Court’s deadlines.  First, she didn’t timely file …

In a June 24, 2015 decision from the Fifth District Court of Appeals regarding a Delaware County, Ohio case, the Appellate Court found the trial court did not make a mistake when it ordered a former husband to pay to …

If you have not looked at your sign code in a long time, there is no time like the present. Last week the United States Supreme Court reminded us that content-based regulations of speech (like your sign code) rarely survive …