McIntyre v. May

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as
McIntyre v. May, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-1231.]




                                        NOTICE
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     South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other
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                         SLIP OPINION NO. 2026-OHIO-1231
             MCINTYRE, APPELLANT, v. MAY, WARDEN, APPELLEE.
  [Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it
     may be cited as McIntyre v. May, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-1231.]
Habeas corpus—By listing in his affidavit of prior civil actions case filed more than
        five years earlier, inmate invited court of appeals’ error, if any, in
        considering whether affidavit failed to comply with R.C. 2969.25(A)(1) and
        (2)—Court of appeals’ dismissal of petition for noncompliance with
        affidavit requirement of R.C. 2969.25(A) affirmed.
    (No. 2025-0974—Submitted December 9, 2025—Decided April 8, 2026.)
   APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Richland County, No. 2025 CA 0040.
                                 __________________
        The per curiam opinion below was joined by KENNEDY, C.J., and FISCHER,
DEWINE, BRUNNER, DETERS, HAWKINS, and SHANAHAN, JJ.
                               SUPREME COURT OF OHIO




          Per Curiam.
          {¶ 1} Appellant, Lewis Leroy McIntyre Jr., appeals the Fifth District Court
of Appeals’ dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, in which he sought
release from the custody of appellee, Harold May, the warden of Mansfield
Correctional Institution. The Fifth District dismissed McIntyre’s petition sua
sponte for noncompliance with the affidavit requirement of R.C. 2969.25(A). We
affirm.
                FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
          {¶ 2} In June 2025, McIntyre filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in
the Fifth District, seeking immediate release from prison on the basis that the trial
court in which he was convicted lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to impose the
sentence he received. McIntyre attached to his petition an affidavit listing each
civil action he had filed in the previous five years, as required by R.C. 2969.25(A).
McIntyre described the first case listed in his affidavit as follows: “State ex rel.
McIntyre v. Ohio Adult Parole Authority, 2021-Ohio-922, action dismissed by trial
court [and] no appeal taken.”
          {¶ 3} The Fifth District sua sponte dismissed McIntyre’s petition. The court
determined that McIntyre’s affidavit did not comply with R.C. 2969.25(A), because
his disclosure of the first case he listed did not contain either a brief description of
the nature of the case or the court in which the case was brought. See R.C.
2969.25(A)(1) and (2). Accordingly, the Fifth District held that McIntyre’s petition
was fatally flawed for failure to comply strictly with R.C. 2969.25(A).
          {¶ 4} McIntyre appealed to this court as of right.
                                      ANALYSIS
          {¶ 5} R.C. 2969.25(A) applies to civil actions filed by inmates against a
government entity or employee and requires the inmate to “file with the court an
affidavit that contains a description of each civil action or appeal of a civil action that
the inmate has filed in the previous five years in any state or federal court.”




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Compliance with the statute is mandatory, and strict compliance is required. State ex
rel. Swanson v. Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., 2019-Ohio-1271, ¶ 6. An inmate’s failure
to comply with R.C. 2969.25(A) warrants dismissal of a habeas petition. Robinson
v. Fender, 2020-Ohio-458, ¶ 6. We review de novo a court of appeals’ judgment
dismissing an extraordinary-writ action for noncompliance with R.C. 2969.25(A).
State ex rel. Harris v. Trelka, 2025-Ohio-4453, ¶ 4.
           {¶ 6} An affidavit of prior civil actions that omits the details required by R.C.
2969.25(A) is fatally deficient. See, e.g., State ex rel. Pointer v. Adult Parole Auth.,
2022-Ohio-3261, ¶ 8 (court of appeals did not err in dismissing an action when
inmate who brought it had “failed to identify the parties to the [prior] civil actions he
disclosed, the courts in which those cases were filed, and the outcome of each case”).
In this case, we agree with the Fifth District that for the first case McIntyre listed in
his affidavit, he did not include a brief description of the nature of the case or the
court in which the case was brought, as required by R.C. 2969.25(A)(1) and (A)(2),
respectively.
           {¶ 7} McIntyre does not dispute that his affidavit failed to contain the
information for State ex rel. McIntyre v. Adult Parole Auth., 2021-Ohio-922 (10th
Dist.), that was required by R.C. 2969.25(A)(1) and (A)(2). However, he contends
that his omission of the information was inconsequential because he was not required
to disclose that case in the first place. McIntyre emphasizes that although the Tenth
District Court of Appeals decided the case in 2021, he filed the case in 2019—more
than five years before he commenced this action in the Fifth District. See R.C.
2969.25(A) (requiring that an inmate’s affidavit list “each civil action or appeal of a
civil action that the inmate has filed in the previous five years in any state or federal
court” [emphasis added]). Thus, McIntyre argues that his affidavit complied with the
statute.
           {¶ 8} We reject McIntyre’s argument. Even if McIntyre was not required to
include State ex rel. McIntyre v. Ohio Adult Parole Auth. in his affidavit of prior civil




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actions, he did so. By listing the case in his affidavit, McIntyre invited the Fifth
District’s error, if any, in considering whether the affidavit failed to comply with R.C.
2969.25(A)(1) and (2) by omitting the required information. “Under the invited-error
doctrine, a party will not be permitted to take advantage of an error which he himself
invited or induced the [lower] court to make.” State ex rel. Bitter v. Missig, 1995-
Ohio-147, ¶ 19.     We therefore find no reversible error in the Fifth District’s
determination that McIntyre’s affidavit of prior civil actions was defective.
                                   CONCLUSION
        {¶ 9} The invited-error doctrine precludes McIntyre from establishing a
reversible error on appeal in this case. We therefore affirm the judgment of the
Fifth District Court of Appeals dismissing his petition.
                                                                   Judgment affirmed.
                                __________________
        Lewis Leroy McIntyre Jr., pro se.
        Dave Yost, Attorney General, and Jerri L. Fosnaught, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
                                __________________




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