Sheetz, Inc. v. Centerville

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as Sheetz, Inc. v. Centerville, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3531.] NOTICE This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published. SLIP OPINION NO. 2026-OHIO-3531 SHEETZ, INC., ET AL. v. THE CITY OF CENTERVILLE, OHIO, ET AL. [Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as Sheetz, Inc. v. Centerville, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3531.] Civil law—Administrative appeals under R.C. Ch. 2506—Res judicata—Because a party is not permitted to bring claims for damages and declaratory relief in an R.C. Ch. 2506 administrative appeal, the doctrine of res judicata does not bar a party from pursuing those claims in a subsequent action— Certified question of state law answered in the negative. (No. 2025-0753—Submitted February 11, 2026—Decided September 15, 2026.) ON ORDER from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, Certifying a Question of State Law, No. 3:24-cv-59. __________________ DETERS, J., authored the opinion of the court, which KENNEDY, C.J., and FISCHER, MAYLE, BRUNNER, HAWKINS, and SHANAHAN, JJ., joined. CHRISTINE MAYLE, J., of the Sixth District Court of Appeals, sat for DEWINE, J.  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO DETERS, J. {¶ 1} We accepted review of a certified question of state law from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (“the Southern District” or “the federal court”). The federal court asks whether a party must bring claims for damages and declaratory relief within an R.C. Ch. 2506 administrative appeal to avoid a res judicata bar. We answer the certified question in the negative. Because a party is not permitted to bring claims for damages and declaratory relief in an administrative appeal, the doctrine of res judicata does not bar a party from pursuing those claims in a subsequent action. I. BACKGROUND {¶ 2} According to the federal court’s certification order, three companies—Sheetz, Inc.; Morse Road Development, L.L.C., d.b.a. Skilken Gold; and Hemmert Far Hills Properties, L.L.C. (collectively, “Sheetz”)—proposed a new use for property in the City of Centerville that had once been the site of a restaurant. The proposed development would include a gas station, convenience store, and drive-through restaurant. {¶ 3} Sheetz submitted a major site plan for the proposed development to the Centerville Planning Commission, which unanimously approved the plan. Not everyone in the community, however, was enthusiastic about the project. Graceworks Lutheran Services, d.b.a. Bethany Lutheran Village (“Bethany Village”), Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church, and a Centerville resident who is not a party to this case opposed Sheetz’s planned development. They appealed the planning commission’s decision approving the major site plan to the Centerville City Council, which reversed the planning commission’s decision. {¶ 4} In response to the city council’s decision, Sheetz filed two lawsuits in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. First, Sheetz appealed the decision under the administrative-appeal statute, R.C. 2506.01 (“the administrative appeal”). Later, Sheetz filed a complaint for damages and declaratory relief under 2  January Term, 2026 42 U.S.C. 1983 (“the Section 1983 action”), naming as defendants the city, the city council, and William Serr (collectively, “Centerville”), Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church and Mark Chilson (collectively, “Epiphany”), and Bethany Village. The city and the city council removed the Section 1983 action to the Southern District. {¶ 5} Sheetz prevailed in the administrative appeal. The common pleas court determined that the city council had taken improper legislative action in reversing the planning commission’s decision. {¶ 6} Following the common pleas court’s ruling in the administrative appeal, the Southern District issued a show-cause order questioning whether the Section 1983 action was barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Sheetz argued that Ohio courts of common pleas do not have the authority to award damages or declaratory relief as part of an R.C. Ch. 2506 administrative appeal and so resolution of the administrative appeal did not trigger the application of res judicata in the Section 1983 action. Additionally, Sheetz filed a motion to certify the issue as a question of state law to this court. {¶ 7} The Southern District determined that the question whether res judicata bars the Section 1983 action is unsettled under Ohio law. It explained that Ohio courts of appeals and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit have reached different conclusions on the question. Compare Clark Cty. Bd. of Commrs. v. Coppess, 2008-Ohio-2879, ¶ 38, 42 (2d Dist.) (claim for damages not barred by res judicata because of a prior R.C. Ch. 2506 administrative appeal), with Moore v. Hiram Twp., 988 F.3d 353, 361-364 (6th Cir. 2021) (prior R.C. Ch. 2506 administrative appeal barred subsequent claim for damages). Thus, the Southern District certified a question of state law to this court. We accepted the certification and agreed to decide the following question: “Whether a party must bring affirmative claims for damages and declaratory relief within an R.C. [Ch.] 2506 3  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO administrative appeal to avoid res judicata.” (Bracketed text in original.) 2025- Ohio-5452. II. ANALYSIS {¶ 8} The doctrine of res judicata embraces two related concepts in Ohio— claim preclusion and issue preclusion. State ex rel. Davis v. Pub. Emps. Retirement Bd., 2008-Ohio-6254, ¶ 27. Claim preclusion bars claims that were or might have been litigated in an earlier lawsuit between the parties that resulted in a valid final judgment. AJZ’s Hauling, L.L.C. v. TruNorth Warranty Programs of N. Am., 2023- Ohio-3097, ¶ 16. For purposes of res judicata, a claim includes all theories of recovery or “forms of relief flowing from those theories” that arise from a particular transaction or occurrence. 1 Restatement of the Law 2d, Judgments, § 24, at 197 (1982). On the other hand, issue preclusion—sometimes called collateral estoppel—applies to “a fact or a point that was actually and directly at issue in a previous action, and was passed upon and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction.” Fort Frye Teachers Assn, OEA/NEA v. State Emp. Relations Bd., 1998-Ohio-435, ¶ 14. {¶ 9} The certified question presented here implicates claim preclusion because it asks whether particular claims for particular forms of relief—damages and declaratory judgment—are barred. Claim preclusion has four elements: it requires “(1) a prior final, valid decision on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) a second action involving the same parties, or their privies, as the first; (3) a second action raising claims that were or could have been litigated in the first action; and (4) a second action arising out of the transaction or occurrence that was the subject matter of the previous action.” Hapgood v. Warren, 127 F.3d 490, 493 (6th Cir. 1997), quoted in Lycan v. Cleveland, 2022-Ohio-4676, ¶ 23 (lead opinion). {¶ 10} According to Sheetz, the certified question turns on the third element: whether Sheetz’s claims for damages and declaratory relief could have 4  January Term, 2026 been litigated in the administrative appeal. The answer, Sheetz says, is no, because Ohio law does not allow claims for damages or declaratory relief in administrative appeals filed under R.C. Ch. 2506. So, Sheetz argues, those claims could not have been litigated in its appeal of the city council’s decision. {¶ 11} Centerville approaches the certified question differently. Sidestepping a debate about claim preclusion’s third element, Centerville builds its case on this court’s holding in Grava v. Parkman Twp.: “A valid, final judgment rendered upon the merits bars all subsequent actions based upon any claim arising out of the transaction or occurrence that was the subject matter of the previous action” (emphasis added), 1995-Ohio-331, syllabus. All that matters, in Centerville’s view, is whether Sheetz’s claims in the Section 1983 action arise from the same transaction or occurrence—the city council’s decision to reverse the planning commission’s decision approving the major site plan—that gave rise to the administrative appeal. No one disputes that both actions arise from the same decision, and so Centerville insists that res judicata applies to the Section 1983 action under Grava. It argues that Sheetz’s inability to bring claims for damages and declaratory relief in the administrative appeal is immaterial. Epiphany, on the other hand, takes the position that the third element of claim preclusion is satisfied because Sheetz could have brought its Section 1983 claims in the administrative appeal. {¶ 12} The positions taken by Centerville and Epiphany are contrary to settled principles of Ohio law, and so we answer the certified question in the negative. To explain why, we first examine what Ohio law has to say about res judicata and then what it has to say about the relationship between administrative appeals and other claims for relief arising from the same transaction or occurrence. 5  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO A. Res judicata is inapplicable to claims that could not have been litigated in an earlier action, even if they arise from the same transaction or occurrence {¶ 13} Generally, a plaintiff must “present every ground for relief in the first action” against a defendant “or be forever barred from asserting it.” Natl. Amusements, Inc. v. Springdale, 53 Ohio St.3d 60, 62 (1990). The doctrine of res judicata guards against vexatious litigation and conserves judicial resources. See id. But as this court has recognized for more than a century, res judicata comes with a limiting principle: for the bar of res judicata to apply, a claim must be of the sort that the plaintiff might have brought in the first action. See Covington & Cincinnati Bridge Co. v. Sargent, 27 Ohio St. 233, 237 (1875) (“A party can not re-litigate matters which he might have interposed, but failed to do in a prior action between the same parties or their privies, in reference to the same subject-matter.”); Roby v. Rainsberger, 27 Ohio St. 674, 677 (1875) (judgment on the merits of a case is a bar to a second suit on the same cause of action between the parties and is conclusive on the subject matter actually determined and “every other matter which might have been litigated and decided upon the issues made and tried in the case”); Rogers v. Whitehall, 25 Ohio St.3d 67, 69 (1986) (“an existing final judgment or decree between the parties to litigation is conclusive as to all claims which were or might have been litigated in a first lawsuit”). {¶ 14} Even so, Centerville argues that this court repudiated this principle in Grava when it stated that “[a] valid, final judgment rendered upon the merits bars all subsequent actions based upon any claim arising out of the transaction or occurrence that was the subject matter of the previous action,” Grava, 1995-Ohio- 331, at syllabus. In its merit brief, Centerville emphasizes the holding in Grava that “all subsequent actions” are barred by a valid, final judgment arising from the same transaction or occurrence (emphasis added), id. It argues that “all” means all—even if the first action was an administrative proceeding in which certain claims could not be raised. 6  January Term, 2026 {¶ 15} Centerville’s reliance on this court’s holding in Grava is misplaced. To understand why, we consider the circumstances in which that decision was made. More than 50 years before Grava, this court decided Norwood v. McDonald, holding that a judgment in a prior action “does not bar a subsequent action where the causes of action are not the same, even though each action relates to the same subject matter.” 142 Ohio St. 299 (1943), paragraph two of the syllabus. In that case, a man had filed two successive lawsuits seeking to establish title to real property held by an estate. The man’s first lawsuit, in which he asserted that he had acquired title to the property through a resulting trust that arose because he had furnished the money to purchase the property, was dismissed. The man later filed an ejectment lawsuit claiming that he had inherited the property when the owner died because he was the owner’s common-law husband. The trial court found that res judicata barred the ejectment suit because the cause of action in that suit could have been brought in the trust suit. But this court disagreed, explaining that “[t]he rule that a judgment is conclusive . . . as to all issues of fact which properly might have been determined therein, is limited to cases involving a single cause of action.” (Emphasis in original.) Id. at 312. Because the two suits involved different causes of action, this court concluded that res judicata did not bar the ejectment suit. Id. at 314-315. {¶ 16} The holding in Norwood stood in tension with long-held law in Ohio that “‘an existing final judgment or decree between the parties to litigation is conclusive as to all claims which were or might have been litigated in a first lawsuit’” (emphasis deleted), Natl. Amusements, 53 Ohio St.3d at 62, quoting Rogers, 25 Ohio St.3d at 69. And so, when Grava presented this court with an opportunity to revisit Norwood, the court did. The plaintiff in Grava—an owner of industrially zoned property—sought from a township’s board of zoning appeals a variance from a local ordinance after a zoning inspector, on the basis of the ordinance, denied the owner’s application for a zoning certificate that would have 7  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO allowed him to construct a building on his property. Undeterred, the owner filed a second application for a zoning certificate with the zoning inspector, this time based on a different ordinance. Although nothing prevented the owner from including arguments under both ordinances in his first application, he did not do so. So after the zoning inspector denied the second application, the board affirmed that decision based on res judicata. The owner appealed the board’s decision under R.C. 2506.01, and this court ultimately affirmed. Grava at ¶ 5-6, 18. The court held that “a valid, final judgment rendered upon the merits bars all subsequent actions based upon any claim arising out of the transaction or occurrence that was the subject matter of the previous action.” Id. at ¶ 13. {¶ 17} When this court in Grava held that a valid judgment “bars all subsequent actions based upon any claim arising” from the same transaction or occurrence, the court was directly responding to the limitation of applying the doctrine of res judicata to identical causes of action as set forth in Norwood. See Grava, 1995-Ohio-331, at syllabus, overruling Norwood at paragraph two of the syllabus, and Whitehead v. Gen. Tel. Co., 20 Ohio St.2d 108 (1969), paragraph two of the syllabus. The court was not addressing whether a claim must be one that was or might have been litigated in a prior action for the doctrine of res judicata to apply. {¶ 18} In any event, anything this court might have had to say in Grava about the certified question in this case would have been dicta. Unlike the case before us today, Grava involved the application of res judicata to a claim that might have been raised in a prior action. See Grava at ¶ 5, 17. Echoing the court of appeals’ determination that the property owner’s claim “‘“might have been litigated”’” in his first application for a zoning certificate, id. at ¶ 5, this court commented that the owner “had a full and fair opportunity to present his case . . . during the proceedings involving his first application” but that he had “simply failed to avail himself of all available grounds for relief in the first proceeding,” id. 8  January Term, 2026 at ¶ 17. Thus, the continuing viability of claim preclusion’s third element was not squarely before the court in Grava. {¶ 19} What’s more, this court in Grava expressly adopted the Second Restatement of Judgments’ view of res judicata, which includes an exception for matters that could not have been raised in an earlier action. See Grava at syllabus (“1 Restatement of the Law 2d, Judgments [1982], Sections 24-25, approved and adopted” [bracketed text in original]). Under the Second Restatement’s treatment of res judicata, a plaintiff is generally barred from bringing successive suits for “alternative or cumulative remedies or forms of relief” arising from “a single transaction or a connected series of transactions.” 1 Restatement, § 25, at 214. Res judicata’s application is, however, “narrower when a procedural system in fact does not permit the plaintiff to claim all possible remedies in one action.” Id. “When . . . formal barriers [against raising certain theories of recovery or demands for relief] in fact existed and were operative against a plaintiff in the first action, it is unfair to preclude him from a second action in which he can present those phases of the claim which he was disabled from presenting in the first.” Id., § 26, at 236. Far from dispensing with claim preclusion’s third element, this court’s adoption of the Second Restatement in Grava reinforced the Second Restatement’s continued relevance. {¶ 20} Since this court’s decision in Grava, we have continued to require all four traditional elements of claim preclusion, including the element that the claim was or might have been actually litigated in the first action, before applying res judicata to bar an action. See, e.g., AJZ’s Hauling, 2023-Ohio-3097, at ¶ 16 (“Claim preclusion makes an existing final judgment or decree between the parties to litigation conclusive as to all claims which were or might have been litigated in a first lawsuit.” [Cleaned up.]). {¶ 21} Centerville cites another recent case, Lycan, as support for its position, but to no avail. In Lycan, a plurality of this court found that res judicata 9  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO barred a class-action lawsuit challenging the applicability of an automated-traffic- enforcement ordinance to vehicle lessees. Lycan, 2022-Ohio-4676, at ¶ 1-2 (lead opinion). A crucial distinguishing factor in Lycan was that the plaintiffs in the class action had chosen to admit their liability through the available administrative process for challenging traffic tickets. See id. at ¶ 20, 29 (lead opinion). Even if we were to disregard this distinction, Lycan still offers no support for Centerville’s position. The plurality listed all four elements of res judicata, id. at ¶ 23 (lead opinion), and analyzed whether the claims in the class action could have been brought as part of the administrative process, id. at ¶ 31 (lead opinion). Unlike the claims in this case, the class-action claims in Lycan could have been brought in the earlier administrative proceeding. See id. {¶ 22} We therefore reiterate what our existing case law has already said: a party who is asserting res judicata as a defense must show, in addition to the other three claim-preclusion elements, that the second action raises claims that were or might have been litigated in the first action. B. Claims for damages and declaratory relief cannot be brought in an R.C. Ch. 2506 administrative appeal {¶ 23} The next question, then, is whether the claims that Sheetz brought in the Section 1983 action were or might have been litigated in the administrative appeal. The answer to that question is no. {¶ 24} An administrative appeal under R.C. Ch. 2506 “is a judicial review of a final administrative decision,” Karches v. Cincinnati, 38 Ohio St.3d 12, 16 (1988), and is not a vehicle for litigating other causes of action. Limited relief is available: a court of common pleas “may affirm, reverse, vacate, or modify the order, adjudication, or decision, or remand the cause to the officer or body appealed from,” R.C. 2506.04. This limitation on available relief is why we have held, as a matter of procedure, that a declaratory-judgment claim “could not be combined with [an R.C. Ch. 2506] appeal” and must be filed in a separate action. Community 10  January Term, 2026 Concerned Citizens, Inc. v. Union Twp. Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 1993-Ohio-115, ¶ 11; accord Karches at 15 (“a declaratory judgment action, filed pursuant to R.C. Chapter 2721, is available as an alternative remedy [to an administrative appeal for challenging the constitutionality of a zoning ordinance]”); Driscoll v. Austintown Assocs., 42 Ohio St.2d 263, 271 (1975) (“the declaratory judgment action is independent from the administrative proceedings; it is not a review of the final administrative order”). {¶ 25} Notwithstanding Ohio law requiring a property owner to bring an action for declaratory relief separately from an administrative appeal, the Sixth Circuit has concluded that a property owner may seek relief under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alongside an administrative appeal if the “‘proper procedures’” are followed. Moore, 988 F.3d at 362, quoting Carroll v. Cleveland, 522 Fed.Appx. 299, 305 (6th Cir. 2013), abrogated on other grounds as stated in Harrison v. Montgomery Cty., 997 F.3d 643, 651 (6th Cir. 2021). We respectfully disagree with the Sixth Circuit’s conclusion. {¶ 26} In Moore, the owner of a property on which a small airport operated was challenging conditions that a township’s board of zoning appeals placed on a certificate of nonconforming use that the owner had sought to continue the airport’s operations. While his administrative appeal under R.C. Ch. 2506 was pending in state court, he filed a complaint in federal court raising constitutional claims against the township under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Sixth Circuit affirmed a federal district court’s judgment in favor of the township that was based on res judicata. Id. at 357, 365. “[E]ven if [the Section 1983] claims were not actually litigated in the underlying action,” the Sixth Circuit explained, “they could have been.” Id. at 361. Our decision in Grava heavily influenced the Sixth Circuit’s conclusion. See Moore at 361, 365. The Sixth Circuit explained that each of the owner’s constitutional claims arose “from the same occurrence . . . that was litigated in the state-court action, and thus could have been litigated at that time.” Id. at 361. 11  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO {¶ 27} Reminiscent of Sheetz’s argument, the property owner in Moore pressed the difference between the relief sought in federal court and in state court. See id. at 362. But the Sixth Circuit was not persuaded. It stated that “‘a plaintiff pursuing an administrative appeal in Ohio need not limit [him]self to administrative claims’” but instead “‘may seek relief under both [R.C. Ch.] 2506 and federal statutory law, as long as [he] follows the proper procedures.’” (First and third bracketed text in original; emphasis deleted.) Id., quoting Carroll, 522 Fed.Appx. at 305. The proper procedures, according to the Sixth Circuit, include either combining a notice of appeal with a complaint or consolidating an administrative appeal with a complaint for other forms of relief. See id. {¶ 28} In addition to its reliance on Grava, the Sixth Circuit was led astray in Moore by several Ohio courts of appeals’ decisions in which administrative appeals under R.C. Ch. 2506 and other claims either had been combined in one complaint or filed separately and then consolidated. See id. at 362-363 (collecting cases). However, the cases the Sixth Circuit cited either predated or omitted any discussion of Community Concerned Citizens, 1993-Ohio-115. See, e.g., Castle Manufactured Homes, Inc. v. Tegtmeier, 1999 WL 771605, *2, 6 (9th Dist. Sept. 29, 1999) (the complaint combined an administrative appeal with other claims, but the appellate court in its decision did not cite Community Concerned Citizens or otherwise discuss whether a combined notice of appeal and complaint was permissible); D’Amico v. Stow, 1990 WL 66894, *2, 6-7 (9th Dist. May 16, 1990) (an administrative appeal was consolidated with an action for declaratory relief, and the appellate court issued its decision nearly three years before Community Concerned Citizens). Community Concerned Citizens makes clear that an administrative appeal under R.C. Ch. 2506 cannot be combined with a complaint seeking other claims for relief. 1993-Ohio-115 at ¶ 11. To the extent the appellate- 12  January Term, 2026 court decisions cited by the Sixth Circuit in Moore say otherwise, they are no longer good law.1 We respectfully conclude that Moore was wrongly decided. {¶ 29} Because Ohio imposes a formal barrier preventing litigation of damages and declaratory-relief claims in an administrative appeal filed under R.C. Ch. 2506, the claims that Sheetz raised in the Section 1983 action are not claims that might have been litigated in the administrative appeal. Thus, the third element of claim preclusion is not satisfied, and res judicata is not a bar to the Section 1983 action. {¶ 30} Centerville insists that this outcome creates an unwarranted exception to the doctrine of res judicata. Sometimes, parties must elect between two different remedies rather than seeking both, Centerville argues, and so it does not matter that Sheetz had no opportunity to bring its claims for damages and declaratory relief in the administrative appeal. But Ohio law does not treat administrative appeals and claims for damages or declaratory relief as mutually exclusive alternatives. See Karches, 38 Ohio St.3d at 15. A declaratory-judgment action may be taken either “[i]n addition, or in the alternative,” to an administrative appeal. (Emphasis added.) Id. What is more, our decision today does not create an exception to res judicata. Instead, our decision today merely applies the long- established test for claim preclusion, which bars a second action only if its claims were or might have been litigated in the first action.2 1. The Sixth Circuit also said in Moore that consolidating an administrative appeal with a complaint raising other claims is procedurally permissible. Under Ohio law, whether consolidated cases merge into one case or retain separate identities is an unsettled question. Compare Mezerkor v. Mezerkor, 1994-Ohio-288, ¶ 4, 9, 16-18 (treating two consolidated cases as one for purposes of determining whether a Civ.R. 54(B) certification was required for an order to become immediately appealable), with Redman v. Ohio Dept. of Indus. Relations, 1996-Ohio-196, ¶ 6, fn. 2 (finding that an order in a consolidated case was immediately appealable, noting that “[t]he consolidation was only to ensure that the same judge would dispose of all of the cases” and distinguishing Mezerkor as “inapplicable” to the facts of the case). Either way, the result is the same here: Community Concerned Citizens would prohibit consolidation of the administrative appeal and the Section 1983 action; if the cases retain separate identities, the administrative appeal and the Section 1983 action would still be litigated separately and the problem under claim preclusion’s third element would remain. 13  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO III. CONCLUSION {¶ 31} For the foregoing reasons, we answer the certified question of state law in the negative. So answered. __________________ Bieser, Greer & Landis, L.L.P., James H. Greer, Matthew M. Suellentrop, Derek L. Muncy, and Jaren A. Hardesty, for petitioners. Subashi, Wildermuth, Justice & Epperley, Nicholas E. Subashi, and Tabitha Justice; and Coolidge Wall Co., L.P.A., and Scott A. Liberman, for respondents City of Centerville, City Council for the City of Centerville, and William Serr. Reminger Co., L.P.A., Brianna M. Prislipsky, and Lindsay M. Johnson, for respondent Mark R. Chilson. The Rosenberg Law Office, L.P.A., and Eric John Rosenberg, for respondent Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church. __________________ 2. Because the discussion above resolves the certified question of state law, we decline to consider Sheetz’s alternative argument that R.C. 713.16 prevents application of res judicata to its Section 1983 claims. 14