Master Nails, Inc. v. Master Nails Lana, L.L.C.

Citations

• 243 N.E.3d 688
• 2024 Ohio 1694

Syllabus

Subject-matter jurisdiction jurisdictional priority whole issue common pleas domestic relations divorce division of property tort injunction temporary restraining order. The plaintiff-corporation filed a complaint in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas seeking injunctive relief and damages for certain alleged torts, including conversion and fraud. The defendants argued that the court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction by operation of the jurisdictional-priority rule, because there was a pending divorce case in a domestic-relations court between one of the defendants and her husband. That defendant claimed that ownership of the plaintiff-corporation was an issue to be decided in the divorce case. We found that the jurisdictional-priority rule does not apply under the circumstances. The parties and claims were not the same between the two cases. The tort case did not present part of the same whole issue pending in the domestic-relations court. And the domestic-relations court does not have jurisdiction to give the plaintiff the relief to which it may be entitled. Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.