Opinion
Nos. 41080 and 41081
Decided April 17, 1968.
Appeal — Final order — Overruling motion to quash service of summons — Not final appealable order — Interlocutory order not rendered final by abuse of discretion.
APPEALS from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County.
On December 6, 1963, the plaintiffs in these consolidated cases, Richard Lantsberry and Robert P. Wise, filed petitions in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, alleging that the failure of a portable heater on a camping trip caused them to suffer frostbite. The original defendants in these actions included the Tilley Lamp Company, Limited, of London, England. Nearly two years later, Sections 2307.382 and 2307.383, Revised Code, commonly called the long-arm statutes, were enacted. Under those sections the plaintiffs filed an alias precipe, naming, among other new defendants, The Tilley Lamp Company, Limited, Belfast, North Ireland, and The Tilley Lamp Company (U.S.A.), Limited.
In each case, after the necessary service was made, the three Tilley Lamp companies filed a motion to quash service of summons, the Court of Common Pleas overruled the motion, and the Tilley Lamp companies filed a notice of appeal. The plaintiffs filed motions to dismiss the appeals on the ground that the overruling of a motion to quash is not a final appealable order. The Court of Appeals overruled the motions to dismiss, and, on the merits, found that there was no jurisdiction over the Tilley Lamp companies, and reversed the judgments of the Common Pleas Court.
The plaintiffs are now before this court pursuant to the allowance of motions to certify the records.
Mr. Ellis B. Brannon and Mr. J. William McCray, for appellants.
Messrs. Spieth, Bell, McCurdy Newell and Mr. Ron Tonidandel, for appellees.
We do not reach the merits of these causes because we find that the Court of Appeals had no jurisdiction to review the order of the trial court. An order overruling a motion to quash is not a final appealable order. State, ex rel. Gregory, v. Masheter, 3 Ohio St.2d 43, Tonio v. Lett Co. of Indiana, Inc., 65 Ohio App. 304; Section 6, Article IV, Ohio Constitution.
The defendants argue that the order of the trial court is appealable, even if it is interlocutory, because it is the result of an abuse of discretion, but the legal basis of this argument was found to be unsound in Klein v. Bendix-Westinghouse Co., 13 Ohio St.2d 85. An abuse of discretion does not, of itself, render final and appealable an otherwise interlocutory order.
Judgments reversed.
TAFT, C.J., ZIMMERMAN, MATTHIAS, O'NEILL, HERBERT, SCHNEIDER and BROWN, JJ., concur.