Ohio Real Estate Commission v. Cohen

187 N.E.2d 641, 90 Ohio Law. Abs. 137, 25 Ohio Op. 2d 165, 1962 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 228
CourtMuskingum County Court of Common Pleas
DecidedOctober 25, 1962
DocketNo. 42679
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 187 N.E.2d 641 (Ohio Real Estate Commission v. Cohen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Muskingum County Court of Common Pleas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ohio Real Estate Commission v. Cohen, 187 N.E.2d 641, 90 Ohio Law. Abs. 137, 25 Ohio Op. 2d 165, 1962 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 228 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1962).

Opinion

Crossland, J.

The above entitled case, on appeal from the hearing and determination of the Appellee herein, Ohio Real Estate Commission, which has also been otherwise denominated as “In the Matter of the Complaint of Miss Frank Brown and Miss Besse L. Brown Against Mr. Clinton Cohen, Sr., dba Cohen Realty Company,” was first presented to this Court earlier on an application of the Appellant for suspension of an order of revocation of Appellant’s license as a real estate broker upon and after a notice of appeal to this Court from the prior action of the Appellee in revoking said license.

Said notice of appeal was filed April 27, 1962, from said order of revocation made by Appellee April 24, 1962, to become effective May 1,1962, although time for appeal therefrom would not elapse until on or about May 9, 1962. Thereafter, Appellee was notified of an opportunity to appear May 2, 1962, to show cause why the temporary order of suspension, which was grant[140]*140ed April 27, 1962, should not continue until disposition of the within appeal. At that time it was agreed between parties by their respective counsel that the order to suspend revocation of Appellant’s license should continue for the full period provided by law, upon Appellant furnishing bond in the amount of Three Hundred Dollars ($300.00), which he did.

Thereafter, the case was assigned for consideration of the appeal merits and heard October 10, 1962, and submitted to the Court upon the merits, which included the transcript of testimony and other evidence received by the Appellee in its hearing and the questions of requests by Appellant for the consideration by the Court of additional evidence, which was received at that time subject to later ruling as to its admissibility, with which latter phase this Court will first proceed in its consideration of the appeal.

The administrative procedure outlined and contained in Section 119.12, Revised Code, provides in this respect that the Court in the hearing of the appeal is confined to the record as certified to it by the agency excepting that in such an appeal as this

“the Court may grant a request for the admission of additional evidence when satisfied that such additional evidence is newly discovered and could not with reasonable diligence have been ascertained prior to the hearing before the agency.”

The additional evidence offered by the Appellant was primarily the testimony of an expert on handwriting regarding the conflict of evidence before the agency as to whether or not a purported receipt of Besse L. Brown dated October 5, 1961, for Six Hundred Dollars ($600.00) from Appellant, being Cohen Realty receipt No. 00663, and marked as Respondent’s Exhibit A, was or was not the genuine signature of the said Besse L. Brown. Additionally offered was Appellant’s receipt book containing the unsigned carbon copy of said Exhibit A and, thirdly, the entry record of the said Besse L. Brown and her sister, Miss Frank Brown, of the First National Bank of Zanesville, Ohio, to their safety box 797, a photostatic copy of which was received by stipulation in substitution of the original record.

Considering the foregoing in the above order, it was manifestly impossible to have provided expert testimony, previously prepared, at the hearing conducted by the Commission, inas[141]*141much as it was not until that hearing that the- admittedly genuine specimens of the Besse L. Brown signatures were obtained from and furnished by her. Without such testimony, for whatever value it is deemed to have, the three members of the Commission at the time and the Court at this time would be relegated to their and its opinion by signature comparisons and the testimony of Besse L. Brown alleging that her purported signature on said Exhibit A was not genuine. This Court is inclined to believe that the testimony of the expert, one Joseph Tholl, whose competence and integrity are unquestioned, should be exceedingly helpful and at least should be known and considered and which the Commission itself would very likely have been interested in hearing had it had the opportunity at the time of its hearing. While it is true that the situation giving rise to the occasion of such additional evidence came into existence in the course of the Commission’s hearing, because of the foregoing circumstances, which could not with reasonable diligence have been ascertained prior to such hearing and, in and of itself, is essentially newly discovered, in that it could have become known only as a result of and subsequent to the hearing before the Commission and the evidence adduced thereat.

Appellant’s receipt book was a part of Appellant’s record, which Appellant had been ordered to produce before the Commission, which he allegedly failed to locate at the time but discovered afterward, so that its production before the Court was nothing more than delayed compliance with a previous order and a part of what, because before lacking, the Commission considered and found that there had been failure on the part of the Appellant to keep written records of the transaction for the period of time required by law. It would therefore seem that Appellant having later discovered his receipt book containing the particular carbon of the disputed receipt, which the Commission itself had desired and which he had previously failed to locate, was a matter of record which should be a part of the case because of that fact and also eligible to be such in view of Appellant’s contention that he had been unable previously with reasonable diligence to locate it in time for hearing before the Commission.

The bank entry record, while it would have been germane relative to the genuine signature of Besse L. Brown at the time [142]*142of the hearing before the Commission, and which still exemplifies her unquestionably genuine signature, was however offered as additional newly discovered evidence which Appellant could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained as pertinent to the contradictory evidence at the Commission’s hearing, until it developed at that time that it was a distinct issue between the Appellants and the Complainants, as to whether the date of their meeting with each other for money settlements was on the fifth or the sixth day of October, 1961. In this respect said entry record, which was marked Respondent’s Exhibit H, does show that Besse L. Brown had obtained access to her deposit box in the First National Bank at 11:49 (presumably a. m.), October 5, 1961, as well as at 11:50, October 6, 1961. Insofar as preparation on the part of Miss Brown with the availability of the money of hers and her sister from their safety deposit box for the purpose of the closing of their sale of the one property and their purchase of the other, the two closings, which consumed a period of about an hour and a quarter on the morning of October 6, 1961, it would appear rather clearly that for whatever purpose access was made to their safety box ten minutes before noon on October 6th, would have followed rather than preceded such closing, and that for the purpose of previous arrangements financially, the visit on October 5th would have been necessary and therefore significant, in accordance with Appellant’s contention.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
187 N.E.2d 641, 90 Ohio Law. Abs. 137, 25 Ohio Op. 2d 165, 1962 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 228, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ohio-real-estate-commission-v-cohen-ohctcomplmuskin-1962.