What is the meaning of the word “televise?” That question was at the center of a case that we reviewed here – at the Supreme Court of Ohio – that involved the city of Norton, a town of about 12,000 near Akron.
In November 2012, voters in Norton approved adding a new section to the city’s charter. The amended section was titled “Televised Meetings.” The amendment stated that the city had up to sixty days to “commence public airings” of all city council meetings, work sessions, and workshops.
The amendment further stated that all council meetings “shall be televised ‘live,’ in their entirety, without censorship and/or editing. Such televised broadcasts shall further be offered twice weekly during repeat airings for public accessibility. Additionally, Council shall arrange for copies of the recorded Council meetings to be available at minimum cost to the public upon request or at no cost to citizens supplying their own suitable medium for recording.”
Since March 1, 2013, all of the city council meetings have been broadcast over the Internet by live video stream, accessible through the city’s website. The city rebroadcasts the meetings and workshops “on televisions located in the Norton City Council’s chambers.” The recordings are available upon request, at little or no cost.
On April 1, 2013, William Paluch – a Norton resident – filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the court of appeals. (A writ of mandamus is a writ issued by a court to compel performance of a particular act by a governmental body or officer.) According to Paluch, the city breached its legal duty to “televise” council meetings. Paluch named Mike Zita, the mayor of Norton, as the respondent in the case.
In response, Zita filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the city’s decision to “televise” by live-streaming the meetings was an exercise of discretion, and a writ of mandamus cannot be used to control the exercise of administrative discretion. Paluch responded that the meaning of the word “televised” was a material fact in dispute, precluding summary judgment.
But the court of appeals granted summary judgment in favor of Zita and denied the writ. The court held that the charter amendment “does not specify the means by which televising the meetings must be accomplished.” The court also said that the city had complied with the charter because Internet streaming is a manner of televising the meetings.
After that ruling, Paluch filed an appeal with us for a final review of his case.
To be entitled to a writ of mandamus, Paluch must establish a clear legal right to the requested relief, a clear legal duty on the part of Zita to provide it, and the lack of an adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. And Paluch must prove entitlement to the writ by clear and convincing evidence.
When we review cases in which a writ of mandamus has been denied, we look for an abuse of discretion. So, did Zita – and the city council – abuse their discretion by live-streaming the meetings rather than “televising” them?
The amendment to the city’s charter requires Norton to “commence public airings” of council meetings. But Paluch’s appeal is premised on the argument that the word “televise” has a single, fixed definition – a definition which doesn’t include live Internet streaming.
Paluch argued that Norton has a clear legal duty to abide by the plain and unambiguous language of the charter and that broadcasting the meetings in the manner the city council has chosen is a violation of that duty.
Writing for the majority in this case, Justice Judith Lanzinger pointed out that Paluch “focused on the wrong term in the amendment. The purpose of the charter amendment was to expand the public’s immediate access to city council’s workings by requiring ‘public airings.’ The voters gave the Norton City Council discretion as to the means of implementing the amendment.”
We determined that the court of appeals did not act in an unreasonable, arbitrary, or unconscionable manner when it held that the writ of mandamus should not be granted because the city had complied with its charter. In fact, in previous cases, courts have held that a writ of mandamus will not be issued “to compel a public official to perform a legal duty which has been completed.”
We also rejected Paluch’s contention that the word “televised,” as used in the amendment, is unambiguous. When the language of a law is unambiguous, it must be applied as written, without resort to rules of interpretation. This one wasn’t unambiguous.
The exhibit that Paluch submitted defines the noun “television” to mean electrical signals “transmitted by UHF (ultrahigh frequency) or VHF (very high frequency) radio waves or by cable and reconverted into optical images by means of a television tube inside a television set.”
Paluch’s source for this definition was thefreedictionary.com, which in turn attributed the definition to the 2003 edition of the Collins English Dictionary. But earlier definitions of “television” – going back to 1989 – referred exclusively to a system of transmitting images and sounds by radio waves and did not include cable transmissions.
More recent definitions encompass all transmissions via “electronic or electromagnetic signals” and omit that the conversion from signal to picture be accomplished by a television tube. That more recent definition also comes from thefreedictionary.com, which attributed the definition to the 2009 version of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
These citations demonstrate that, far from having a plain and fixed definition, the word “television” has evolved over time to encompass new technologies, including the Internet.
“Given the inherent fluidity of the term,” Justice Lanzinger wrote, “we cannot say that the city of Norton abused its discretion by interpreting” the amendment “to permit public airing of city council meetings by way of live Internet streaming.”
We concluded that Paluch did not establish that Mayor Zita failed to perform a clear legal duty. Therefore – by a four-to-three vote – we affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals to deny the writ.
NOTE: The case referred to is: State ex rel. Paluch v. Zita, 141 Ohio St.3d 123, 2014-Ohio-4529. Case No. 2013-1176. Decided October 15, 2014. Majority opinion written by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger.