The Ohio Supreme Court is requesting comments until November 13th on proposed changes to the Rules of Practice and Procedure, including appellate, civil, criminal, juvenile and evidence rules. According to the Court's news release,
"The proposed amendments concern changes to the rules of appellate procedure, civil procedure, criminal procedure, juvenile procedure and the Ohio Rules of Evidence.
Many of the proposed changes target inconsistencies, allow for electronic means of service, remove outdated concepts, or move certain rules to other sections that make more sense. There are, however, a few substantive changes to existing rules.
- Proposed amendments to Civ. R. 4.4 and Juv. R. 16 would make it clear that service by posting can be used in initial actions and expand it to post-decree matters. In addition to the traditional “posting” of a notice on the courthouse bulletin board, service would use the county clerk of court’s website if it exists, although the amendments don’t require electronic posting.
- Amendments to Civ. R. 10(D)(2) and Evid. R. 601 seek to enhance the affidavit of merit requirement and clarify who qualifies as an expert in a medical claim. The amendments distinguish between medical malpractice cases and other medical, dental, optometric or chiropractic claims. An amendment to Evid. R. 601 would require experts to have devoted three-quarters of their professional time to active clinical practice at the time of the event giving rise to the claim."
Click here to follow the link to view the text of the proposed amendments and for the address for the submission of comments. Assuming no problems or changes occur, these proposed amendments would go into effect on July 1, 2013.