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11th District: Trial court abused its discretion in childcare certification case
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: March 8, 2013
Did the Lake County Department of Children and Family Services unnecessarily revoke a home childcare provider’s certificate?
That is an issue a trial court must decide, the 11th District Court of Appeals ruled recently.
Donna Lambert appealed a Lake County Common Pleas Court judgment that affirmed an administrative decision that revoked her Type B certificate to provide publicly-funded daycare services.
According to case summary, JFS revoked Lambert’s certificate after an investigation found multiple violations of 10 different regulations.
Lambert requested a hearing, and an officer found numerous violations of two regulations.
Specifically, the hearing officer found Lambert violated the six-child limit —Ohio Admin. Code 5101:2-14-06(B)(1) — four times and provided child care 55 times without taking a six-hour break during any one 24-hour period, as per Ohio Admin. Code 5101:2-14-20(K).
Lambert argued JFS signed off on her scheduled hours and its payments proved that.
“… The question of law before this court is whether JFS’s `sign-off’ on appellant’s scheduled hours and its payments issued upon that `sign-off’ means that appellant’s deviations from the six-hour rule was `approved in writing’ pursuant to Ohio Admin. Code 5101:2-14-20(K),” 11th District Judge Thomas R. Wright stated in a 2-1 opinion.
“JFS maintains that its `sign-off’ merely entitled appellant to be paid for her services and did not constitute approval `in writing’ to provide child care without taking a six-hour break. The trial court agreed with JFS.”
But the appellate panel found the trial court abused its discretion by concluding Lambert did not have written approval for the 55 instances of variance from the six-hour rule.
However, the appellate court found their judgment of the trial court when reviewing decisions of administrative agencies is limited to questions of law.
So they remanded the case to a Lake County trial court, which has broader leeway on administrative agency decisions.
The 11th District did reject Lambert’s argument claiming that when she was not paid overtime for providing child care when a caregiver was late, she was not actually providing child care, so she could not violate either the six-child or six-hour rule.
“The fact that appellant was not being compensated for overtime with respect to a particular child or children does not mean that she was no longer providing `child care’ or `child day care’ under the governing rules and regulations,” Wright stated in his opinion.
Then-11th District Judge Mary Jane Trapp concurred, with Judge Cynthia Westcott Rice dissenting.
“By reversing the trial court’s decision with respect to appellant’s 55 violations of the six-hour rule, I believe the majority has engaged in a weighing of the evidence and thus exceeded this court’s limited power of review, in violation of the Supreme Court of Ohio’s precedent in Kisil, supra, and this court’s precedent in Rickard, supra,” Rice wrote in her opinion.
“The majority interprets Ms. (Catherine) Monahan’s act of signing off on appellant’s reported hours so she could be paid as an `approval in writing’ of appellant’s repeated violations of the six-hour rule. However, the majority conveniently ignores Ms. Monahan’s testimony that she was never aware of appellant’s violations of this rule.”
The case is cited Donna Lambert v. Lake County Department of Children and Family Services, No. 2011-L-147.