Ohio Civil Rights Commission

East Cleveland passes a broad civil rights ordinance

By Anthony Glassman

East Cleveland-- After two years of bridge-building between the Cleveland Stonewall Democrats and the East Cleveland government, the city unanimously passed an expansive civil rights ordinance on July 19.

The legislation covers sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, gender and disability in the areas of education, employment, public accommodation and housing. It was drafted by attorney Leslye Huff, one of three Stonewall Democrats board members who live in the city, along with her wife Mary Ostendorf and fellow board member Kate Kennedy.

It replaces a narrower fair-housing ordinance, to which sexual orientation was added ten years ago.

The new measure establishes a five- to seven-member civil rights commission to investigate allegations of discrimination. If, after the investigation, the matter cannot be resolved through mediation or conciliation, it gives the person filing the complaint the right to file a lawsuit.

The Stonewall Democrats began endorsing in East Cleveland in the 2009 election cycle, and found strong, if unfocused, support for LGBT equality.

“Everyone seemed to agree that, to the extent that they understood the issues, they were proponents of LGBT rights,” Huff said, “using the fairness quotient, as I like to call it.”

She described the fairness quotient as being, when one describes a situation, the likelihood that someone says, “That isn’t right!”

Along with their endorsements, the Stonewall Democrats pledged to help the officials in East Cleveland develop legislation protecting the rights of LGBT people.

Huff drafted the ordinance and gave it to city council.

“City council takes it to the law director for vetting to see if there’s anything in conflict with other ordinances or the constitution of Ohio or the United States Constitution,” Huff noted.

Fair Housing / Lending News: Defense Attorneys Go Home Hungry ...

In what started out in the trial phase as a fair housing complaint, Rodney Jackson filed a complaint in the Ohio Civil Rights Commission against Mellon Ridge Residential Care Facility alleging that he had been discriminated against because of his race, and because of the Defendant’s failure to reasonably accommodate his disability. Mr. Jackson required the use of a wheelchair and the services of a service animal, namely, a dog, in order to function. Defendant, Mellon Ridge filed a petition for fees in the amount of $86,668.12. So why didn’t they get it? The Defense even hired “a prominent and well-respected local attorney with many years of litigation experience” to review the billing records and testify at the fee evidentiary hearing. The attorney found that “the amount of fees claimed [were] reasonable and necessary.” There were billing records, but Defense counsel “…made a calculated choice not to submit his billing records into evidence (in the evidentiary hearing).” Apparently copies of the billing records were made available to the Plaintiffs during discovery, but the Magistrate never saw them. In fact, when asked about the lack of detail in the accounting for attorney’s fees in the evidentiary hearing, Defense counsel stated “I don’t believe the statute requires that kind of explicit detail.” The only thing even remotely resembling “an itemized list or other evidence of the legal services” required for attorney’s fees under R.C. 2323.51(B)(5) was a short table contained in the Defense’s time affidavit giving the names, the amount of time spent, the hourly rate, and the total amount of fees of each attorney who worked on the case. The court noted, however, that what was NOT included in the time affidavit was “a breakdown of how these hours were spent and what activities were performed.” Defense counsel was obviously mistaken. The correct way attorney’s fees are calculated per the Lodestar method: the number of hours reasonably expended on a case, multiplied by reasonable attorney’s fees. However, per the Ohio statute, in order to recover attorney’s fees based on frivolous conduct, an itemized list or other evidence of legal services is required. How could Defense counsel have missed that? The need for an itemized list of legal services being rendered is not mutually exclusive to civil, fair housing cases such as this.

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Laws against discrimination, employment, public accomodations, housing, credit, administered by Ohio Civil Rights Commission

Discrimination in public accommodations in Ohio, a survey, conclusions, and recommendations prepared pursuant to section 4112.04 (A) paragraphs (7) and (8) of the Revised code of Ohio