Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit — appointed by Ronald Reagan
District Court, N.D. Ohio — appointed by Richard Nixon
Reed v. Rhodes
District Court, N.D. Ohio · 1996-05-08 · cited 5×
Reed v. Rhodes is a long-running school desegregation case in which the district court previously found that Cleveland public school students had been intentionally segregated by race through the acts and omissions of both city and state defendants, creating a de jure dual system from the 1950s through the 1970s. In a 1978 Remedial Order, the court required the defendants to implement systemwide remedies, including desegregation of staff and facilities, revised student assignments to limit racial imbalance to no more than a 15 percent deviation from the district-wide ratio, new educational programs, and various ancillary measures such as testing, counseling, magnet schools, and safety protocols. The order drew on Supreme Court precedent requiring comprehensive relief to eliminate the effects of prior segregation and achieve unitary status. The present opinion recounts this history while noting current data on student performance and raising questions about the continuing viability of the certified class.
civil rights
Reed v. Rhodes
District Court, N.D. Ohio · 1996-02-01 · cited 2×
This case is a long-pending class action lawsuit seeking desegregation of the Cleveland School District, which has been under court oversight since 1973. Plaintiff counsel Thomas I. Atkins filed a motion to recuse the presiding judge under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) and a motion to vacate a March 3, 1995 order directing the State Board of Education to exercise its statutory and constitutional authority over the district amid severe financial mismanagement. The court addressed the motions jointly, noting that the district had not been placed in receivership and that the challenged order simply enforced existing consent decrees and state law rather than creating new oversight; it rejected the motions as resting on unsupported hearsay, speculation, and conclusory claims that violated Rule 11 standards. The opinion also set prevailing hourly rates for legal work in the case at $175–$200 and required all fee requests to comply with the Hensley v. Eckerhart standards for documenting time spent on successful claims.
civil rightsfederal powerprocedure
Reed v. Rhodes
District Court, N.D. Ohio · 1996-02-01
Reed v. Rhodes is a class action lawsuit regarding desegregation of the Cleveland public schools. The court considered a motion by one of the plaintiffs' attorneys to vacate its March 3, 1995 order directing the State Board of Education to assume responsibility for the school district pursuant to Ohio law, after the district faced financial and management difficulties. The court denied the motion, finding that plaintiffs' counsel had not objected to the order at the February 1995 hearing or pursued available post-judgment or appellate procedures, and that the motion relied on factually unsupported assertions without legal merit or precedent.
civil rightsprocedure
Day v. Video Connection of Solon, Ohio
District Court, N.D. Ohio · 1982-07-13 · cited 4×
This case involves federal trademark and service mark infringement claims, along with related Ohio state law claims, brought by plaintiff John Day, owner of a Toledo video business called 'The Video Connection,' against a franchisor, its franchises, and individual officers and owners using similar names. The court addressed multiple motions, granting Day's request to add additional defendants who own or operate TVC stores, granting the defendants leave to file an amended answer with new defenses, and reserving decision on whether to dismiss two individual defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction until after discovery. The court denied Day's motion for a preliminary injunction against the defendants' use of the marks, reasoning that he had not shown a strong likelihood of success because the parties' markets, customers, and advertising were sufficiently distinct to make confusion unlikely, and that an injunction would cause substantial harm to the defendants' established franchise operations.
business & regulatoryprocedure
Adair v. Koppers Co., Inc.
District Court, N.D. Ohio · 1982-05-28 · cited 27×
This case is a diversity personal injury action in which plaintiff Daniel Adair sued Koppers Co. for damages from an injury sustained while operating a coal-handling conveyor that Koppers had designed, manufactured, and installed in 1923 (with modifications in 1949) as part of an industrial coke plant later owned by Adair's employer. Koppers moved for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, asserting that the claims were barred by Ohio Revised Code § 2305.131, which imposes a ten-year limitations period on actions against persons who furnish design or construction services for improvements to real property. The court examined the contract documents, blueprints, and the conveyor's integration into the plant structure, concluding that it constituted an improvement to real property and that Koppers had acted solely as a contractor and designer with no ongoing control after 1949. The opinion also addressed the inapplicability of strict products liability under Restatement § 402A because Koppers was not engaged in the business of selling conveyors separately from the overall plant project.
proceduretorts & liabilityproperty
Bailey v. ITT Grinnell Corp.
District Court, N.D. Ohio · 1982-02-05 · cited 12×
This case is a products liability action in which plaintiff George Bailey, an employee at Anchor Template Die, sought damages for severe hand injuries sustained while operating a punch press originally sold by defendant ITT Grinnell to his employer via a broker. Bailey asserted claims for negligence, breach of warranty, and strict liability in tort against ITT and V&O Press, with ITT filing cross-claims and moving for partial summary judgment on the warranty and strict liability counts. The court reviewed the development of Ohio products liability doctrine, including judicial adoption of implied warranty in tort and strict liability under Restatement §402A, alongside the contractual remedies provided by Ohio's adoption of UCC Article 2. It determined that UCC §1302.31 extends a seller's warranty only to the buyer's family, household members, or guests (horizontal privity), not to employees, and that tort remedies did not alter this statutory limit for the warranty claim. Accordingly, the court granted ITT's motion as to the breach of warranty count.
torts & liabilityprocedure