State Ex Rel. Eckstein v. Video Express

695 N.E.2d 38, 119 Ohio App. 3d 261
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 28, 1997
DocketNo. CA96-05-014.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 695 N.E.2d 38 (State Ex Rel. Eckstein v. Video Express) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Eckstein v. Video Express, 695 N.E.2d 38, 119 Ohio App. 3d 261 (Ohio Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

William W. Young, Presiding Judge.

Lorrie Rhonemus, sole proprietor of defendant-appellant, Video Express, appeals a Fayette County Court of Common Pleas nuisance abatement order that closed her videotape rental store for one year. Rhonemus sets forth several difficult statutory and constitutional issues within seven assignments of error.

Rhonemus operated Video Express in Washington Court House, Fayette County, Ohio. The video store carried about one thousand two hundred general release videotapes in a main room. Rhonemus also offered about three hundred forty-five “adult-oriented” videotapes in a smaller, separate room with access restricted to those over age twenty-one. In June 1994, the Fayette County Prosecutor, Steven H. Eckstein, sent Rhonemus a letter directing her attention to Ohio’s pandering obscenity statute, R.C. 2907.32. The prosecutor informed Rhonemus that certain videotapes she offered appeared to be obscene. According to the prosecutor, those tapes “depicted numerous acts of vaginal and/or anal intercourse, fellatio, and cunnilingus.”

*267 On March 2, 1995, an investigator with the prosecutor’s office rented two videotapes from Video Express, copied those tapes, and returned the originals to the store. On March 3, the prosecutor filed a complaint under R.C. 2907.37(A) to enjoin Rhonemus from renting the two videotapes. The trial court granted the state’s request for an ex parte temporary restraining order on March 6. On March 17, the prosecutor amended his complaint to allege a civil nuisance under R.C. 2907.37(B) and R.C. Chapter 3767. The amended complaint alleged that Video Express should be abated as a nuisance for repeatedly renting obscene videotapes to the public in violation of R.C. 2907.32. At the prosecutor’s request, the trial court dissolved the temporary restraining order on March 24.

Rhonemus filed an answer and counterclaim on April 7, 1995. The counterclaim alleged that the prosecutor’s June 1994 letter was an unconstitutional attempt to impose a prior restraint on her First Amendment rights in violation of Section 1983, Title 42, U.S. Code. Rhonemus also sought a declaratory judgment that the two videotapes were not obscene. The trial court dismissed Rhonemus’s counterclaim in both regards. The trial court subsequently overruled Rhone-mus’s motion to suppress the copied videotapes as evidence. The trial court also denied her request to seat an advisory jury.

After a trial before the court on April 2,1996, the trial judge found that the two videotapes were obscene, that Rhonemus knew that they were obscene, and that their rental constituted a nuisance. The trial court ordered the entire video store closed for one year and ordered certain property associated with the rental of the videotapes sold at auction. Rhonemus asked for a release from the closure order, but the trial court denied that request because Rhonemus leased the premises.

On appeal, Rhonemus sets forth seven assignments of error. Rhonemus’s first three assignments of error raise several threshold issues. This court will consider Rhonemus’s second assignment of error first.

Rhonemus complains under her second assignment of error that the trial court erred in not suppressing the copied videotapes as evidence. This court disagrees.

“Absent some action taken by government agents that can properly be classified as a ‘search’ or ‘seizure,’ the Fourth Amendment rules designed to safeguard First Amendment freedoms do not apply.” Maryland v. Macon (1985), 472 U.S. 463, 468-469, 105 S.Ct. 2778, 2781, 86 L.Ed.2d 370, 376 (examination and purchase of materials in adult bookstore did not constitute a search or seizure). There was no illegal search here since Rhonemus had no reasonable expectation of privacy over videotapes that she rented to the public. See id. The critical issue is whether the state’s act of copying the videotapes amounted to an unconstitutional seizure. See State v. Pink Pyramid (Oct. 18, 1995), Hamilton App. No. C-940930, unreported, at 4,1995 WL 610709.

*268 A seizure occurs when “there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in the property seized.” Macon at 469, 105 S.Ct. at 2782, 86 L.Ed.2d at 377. This court concludes there was no seizure in this case. There is no indication that the state violated any express terms of the rental. Compare Pink Pyramid (where police rented a videotape, held the tape-longer than the stated rental period and paid applicable late fees, there was no seizure because there was no meaningful interference with the owner’s possessory interest in the tape). There is also no indication that Rhonemus holds a copyright over the contents of the videotapes. Rhonemus has offered no other compelling explanation of how the state compromised her possessory interest in the videotapes. Under these circumstances, the trial court did not err in refusing to suppress the copied videotapes as evidence. Rhonemus’s second assignment of error is overruled.

Rhonemus complains under her first assignment of error that the trial court erred in dismissing her counterclaims. There are two distinct issues here: whether the trial court erred in dismissing Rhonemus’s Section 1983 claim against Prosecutor Eckstein, and whether the trial court erred in dismissing her motion for a declaratory judgment.

Rhonemus first argues that the trial court should have proceeded with her motion for a declaratory judgment. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing that motion, although the reasoning the trial court employed was faulty.

The trial court cited R.C. 2907.36(C) in denying Rhonemus’s request for a declaratory judgment. That statute does not apply here, however, because neither party filed a motion for a declaratory judgment under R.C. 2907.36. Even if the trial court properly considered R.C. 2907.36, that statute expressly provides that it places no limitations “on the persons otherwise entitled to bring an action for a declaratory judgment pursuant to sections 2721.01 to 2721.15.”

Although R.C. 2907.36(C) does not support the trial court’s position, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the motion for a declaratory judgment. The Ohio Supreme Court has said that actions for declaratory judgment are inappropriate where “special statutory proceedings” would be bypassed. State ex rel. Albright v. Delaware Cty. Court of Common Pleas (1991), 60 Ohio St.3d 40, 42, 572 N.E.2d 1387, 1388-1389. Prosecutor Eckstein filed both his original and amended complaints before Rhonemus sought a declaratory judgment; Rhonemus was trying to bypass an existing action. In light of the pending proceedings, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the declaratory judgment motion.

*269 The trial court also dismissed Rhonemus’s Section 1983 complaint against Prosecutor Eckstein. That complaint was based upon the prosecutor’s June 1994 letter to Rhonemus. “A cause of action under Section 1983 must allege that a person, acting under color of law, deprived the plaintiff of a constitutionally guaranteed federal right.” Conley v. Shearer

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Bluebook (online)
695 N.E.2d 38, 119 Ohio App. 3d 261, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-eckstein-v-video-express-ohioctapp-1997.