Alumni Spotlight
Alice Robie Resnick ‘61
Toledo Native Wins Third Term on Ohio Supreme Court
This story appeared in The Blade (Toledo,
OH) on Oct. 8, 2000, as Justice Resnick
was in the midst of the toughest campaign
of her career. She subsequently won reelection for a third term on the Ohio Supreme Court. The story by Jim Provance
is excerpted by permission.
“Activist Judge.” Ohio Supreme Court
Justice Alice Robie Resnick dislikes the
title attached to the court’s majority that
has struck down the state’s educationfunding system and killed legislative attempts to restrict lawsuit jury awards.
“The worst scenario would be if the special
interests, through their tremendous amounts
of money, were ever able to buy a seat on
the Supreme Court,” said the justice. “Then,
everything would be up for sale.”
Born in Erie, Pa., she graduated from Siena
Heights College (now University) in 1961
with a degree in history and received her law
degree three years later from the University
of Detroit. She worked in private practice
and in the Lucas County prosecutor’s office,
where she met her husband. They’ve been
married 30 years.
“When you look at the four justices who
sat on that [tort reform] case and the
school-funding case, you find two Republicans and two Democrats,” said the
61-year-old Toledo Democrat. “To me,
that says a fair and impartial group of justices. You look at the dissenters, they’re
Republicans.”
Justice Resnick, seeking a third six-year
term on Ohio’s highest court, faces more
than just Republican opposition from 8th
District Court of Appeals Judge Terrence
O’Donnell in Cleveland. The race has garnered national attention as an example of
one that could be heavily influenced by the
spending of millions by special interests
on both sides.
Teachers, labor, and trial lawyers are
backing Justice Resnick, while business
and insurance companies have started
a statewide TV campaign favoring her
opponent.
When Justice Resnick gets away from
the law offices, she gardens and swims
to relax. Her husband noted that they had
an indoor swimming pool installed so she
could swim every day while home.
Justice Resnick has written many decisions that have involved unanimous votes
of the court or alliances outside the 4-3
divide seen in the most controversial
cases.
She wrote the opinion in the unanimous
decision permitting use of battered women syndrome as a criminal defense. She
wrote a dissenting opinion in a 4-3 ruling
that held that a person with birth defects
allegedly caused by his grandmother’s
ingestion of a drug while his mother
was in her womb could not sue the drug
manufacturer.
The other three justices rounding out the
4-3 majority, however, didn’t write the
opinions on the two most controversial
court rulings in recent years. And they
aren’t on the ballot Nov. 7 in what is turning out to be the fight of Justice Resnick’s
judicial career.
“If being a little liberal and favoring persons rather than corporations and insurance companies is activism, then it might
be accurate,” said her husband, 6th District
Court of Appeals Judge Melvin Resnick.
“But I don’t like the term any more than
I like the term ‘restraint,’ the description
attached to the three-member minority.
U.S. District Magistrate Patricia Hermann
in Cleveland. “She is certainly somebody
who has always been committed to the
advancement of women.”
She makes no apologies for the strong
tone of the opinion she wrote last year
sharply criticizing the General Assembly
for attempting to rein in jury awards in litigation after the court had previously ruled
such action was unconstitutional.
“She’s a wonderful person, highly intelligent, and she has no binds to anybody,”
he said. “She decides cases on her own
under the law.”
She was elected to Toledo Municipal Court
in 1975 and, seven years later, was elected
to the 6th District appellate court. In 1988,
she became just the first woman in 66 years
to be elected to the state Supreme Court.
The Ohio Women’s Bar Association, an
organization the justice helped found in
1991, established the Alice Robie Resnick
Outstanding Lawyer Award. The first recipient in 1988 was Justice Resnick.
“The award is for a woman who has made
an outstanding contribution to the legal
profession and who has been committed to
promoting the advancement of women in the
profession,” said the award’s latest recipient,
“It was necessary to tell them one branch
of government, the judiciary, is the sole
branch that interprets the constitution,”
she said. “Once we have spoken, you
cannot re-enact what we have said is
unconstitutional.”
She also defends her ruling in the schoolfunding case, which Republicans have
attempted to redefine as the “Resnick
tax hike.” The 4-3 ruling held that the
state has allowed schools to become too
dependent on local property taxes, placing students in property-poor districts at
a competitive disadvantage.
“I truly think that education is the single
entity that can give children an equal opportunity at whatever their dreams are,”
she said. “It’s the only factor in life that really can equalize their social or econ