Supreme Court grants ANOTHER writ of prohibition against Judge Robert Ruehlman

For the second time in five months, the Supreme Court has granted a writ of prohibition against Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert P. Ruehlman.

In June, it was for unlawfully attempting to enjoin the collection of a Kentucky judgment against nationally known but locally based former attorney Stan Chesley; the Court wrote that "Judge Ruehlman has repeatedly acted to shield Chesley and his assets from creditors, despite a patent lack of jurisdiction," and that there was no basis for Judge Ruehlman "to inject himself into" the collection action. (Last month the Court denied a motion for reconsideration in that case.)

This time Judge Ruehlman injected himself into nearly two hundred cases pending before other common pleas judges by reassigning them to himself. All of the cases had something in common: disgraced former spine surgeon Dr. Atiq Durrani, who was arrested in 2013 after being federally indicted on more than 40 counts relating to his alleged performance of unnecessary surgeries, for which he then fraudulently billed insurers, including public insurance programs. (Durrani fled the country prior his criminal trial, "leaving his patients to pursue the hospitals where the surgeries took place," and was recently was found to be a practicing surgeon in his home country of Pakistan. I've frequently thought that Durrani warrants his own post or series of posts, but frankly there are just too many cases to cover them simply.)

But back to Judge Ruehlman. The Court's per curiam opinion wrote that only the administrative judge has the authority to reassign cases, and could only do so after a hearing--but that Judge Ruehlman nevertheless assigned the cases to himself without either obtaining the consent of either the administrative judge or the other judges assigned to the cases, or apparently even telling the other judges that he was doing so. (Indeed, in some instances Judge Ruehlman apparently did this sua sponte, without even a request for consolidation or reassignment from the parties.) The Court's ruling orders Judge Ruehlman to transfer the cases back to the other judges, and prohibits him from making any other orders or rulings in cases not assigned to him.

Judge Ruehlman has been in the news periodically for holding members of the public, and even attorneys appearing in his courtroom, in contempt of court, and has been reversed by the First District for, among other things, "bullying" a witness (not to mention the Chesley case, of course).

Last week Judge Ruehlman was re-elected to his sixth six-year term on the common pleas court, winning about 52% of the vote and defeating little-known Democratic lawyer Darlene Rogers. He had run unopposed for the seat in 1992, 1998, 2004, and 2010.