# City of Portsmouth v. McGraw

> Ohio Supreme Court · January 22, 1986 · 21 Ohio St. 3d 117

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6759127

## Case

- **Full name:** City of Portsmouth v. McGraw
- **Court:** Ohio Supreme Court
- **Decided:** January 22, 1986
- **Citations:** 21 Ohio St. 3d 117; 21 Ohio B. 422; 488 N.E.2d 472; 1986 Ohio LEXIS 540
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Celebrezze
- **Judges:** Brown, Celebrezze, Douglas, Holmes, Locher, Sweeney, Wright
- **Cited by:** 10 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6759127

## Opinion text

Celebrezze, C.J.,
dissenting. According to the majority, the city of Portsmouth may make LaVeeda McGraw an offer of services which she *123 cannot refuse and for which she must pay whether or not she needs those services.
I question the wisdom of the city’s decision to arbitrarily slap McGraw, a Portsmouth senior citizen, with a criminal prosecution for failing to pay the fee for garbage collection service which she did not use. Further, I fail to see the fairness in the manner in which the city has selectively enforced this ordinance. Other non-users of the city’s garbage collection service and literally hundreds of persons whose payments were delinquent were not prosecuted as was appellee. McGraw’s only “offense” was making a quite sensible objection to the payment of a fee for a service which she neither wanted nor needed.
I join the well-reasoned dissents of Justices Brown and Sweeney and support their conclusion that the city of Portsmouth may not constitutionally prosecute appellee for her failure to pay for a service which she did not use.
Sweeney and C. Brown, JJ., concur in the foregoing dissenting opinion.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6759127. Public record. Not legal advice.