Litigation

Where the state legislature creates a statute to protect a substantive right to obtain relief from final judgment, that statute does not violate the constitutional separation of powers. The State Ex rel. Loyd v. Lovelady, No. 2004-1465, Supreme Court of Ohio, Feb. 1, 2006.

In 1985, Loyd gave birth to a child. The local child services agency sought a paternity order from Lovelady. Lovelady failed to appear, and a default judgment was entered establishing paternity of the subject child and ordering him to pay child support. Thereafter, in 2003, Lovelady filed a motion appealing from the 1996 order under R.C. 3119.961 et seq., claiming that recent DNA testing established that Lovelady was not the father of the subject child. The trial court denied Lovelady's motion, holding that RC 3119.961 et seq. violate the separation of powers by interfering with the Ohio Supreme Court's exclusive authority to regulate state court procedures. Lovelady appealed, and the court of appeals reversed and remanded, finding the RC 3119.961 et seq. do not violate the constitutional separation of powers because those sections establish a substantive, rather than a procedural right. The supreme court affirmed the court of appeals. It considered language of Ohio's General Assembly that was exactly on point, stating that the R.C. 3119.96 et seq. deals with a person's substantive right to obtain relief from a final judgment of an order that requires that person to pay child support. The court concluded that the Ohio General Assembly intended to create a substantive right to address potential injustice.