A court of common pleas clerk may charge $1 per page to make a complete record of a court case and only an additional $1 for the entire “service” of making that record, regardless of the number of pages it contains, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that the Medina County Common Pleas Court clerk improperly charged a man an additional $1 per page to make a complete record of his divorce case that was billed as a “Clerk Computer Operation” fee.

Writing for the Court, Justice Patrick F. Fischer explained that under the previous version of R.C. 2303.201(B)(1),  which allowed the clerk to charge additional fees “to make technological advances in or to computerize the office of the clerk of the court of common pleas,” the clerk could only charge an additional $1 total to make the record. The decision affirmed a Ninth District Court ruling, which found that the clerk had improperly charged an additional $1 per page to create records of cases.

Class-Action Lawsuit Challenging Court Charges Filed
Nathan Gault was a party in a divorce case. After the divorce case was finalized, he was charged two fees for the complete record of his case. One fee was for the charge listed in R.C. 2303.20(H), which requires the clerk to charge $1 per page for a complete record. However, he was charged another $1 per page for the court’s “Clerk Computer Operation” fee.

In 2022, Gault filed a class-action lawsuit , claiming he was overcharged for the computer operation fee. His lawsuit maintained that the clerk, under the previous version of R.C. 2303.201(B)(1), could only charge an additional $1 for the service of making a complete record.

The Medina County Common Pleas Court initially held that Gault’s lawsuit was untimely and that he needed to challenge the fee when it was first charged after his divorce action. Gault appealed . The Ninth District held that Gault’s claim was not untimely and remanded the case to the trial court, which then ruled that Gault had not been overcharged.

Gault appealed again, and the Ninth District reversed the trial court’s decision, holding that he had been overcharged. The clerk’s office appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that under the previous version of R.C. 2303.201(B)(1), the clerk could charge $2 per page to make a complete record.

Supreme Court Analyzed Court Fee Laws
The Supreme Court’s opinion noted that under the previous version of R.C. 2303.201(B)(1), which has now been renumbered to R.C. 2303.201(B)(1)(a), a common pleas court clerk may determine that “additional funds are required to make technological advances in or to computerize the office of the clerk of court” and direct the clerk to charge an additional fee “not to exceed one dollar each for the services described in” six subsections of R.C. 2303.20, including making the complete record of a case.

The clerk’s office argued that making each page should constitute its own “service,” and thus Gault was not overcharged. But as Justice Fischer explained, “this interpretation flatly contradicts the plain meaning of the word ‘service,’ which is meant to encompass the entire act described in R.C. 2303.20(H), not every discernible step necessary to accomplish it.” The opinion concluded that the clerk’s fees charged to Gault exceeded what the law authorized, and affirmed the Ninth District’s decision.

2024-0757 and 2024-0999 Gault v. Medina Cty. Court of Common Pleas Clerk, Slip Opinion No. 2025-Ohio-4699.

View oral argument video of this case.

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