YOUNGSTOWN — Ending a dispute that dates back nearly seven years, the Ohio Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by a Youngstown police detective sergeant to compel the city civil service commission to grant him a hearing to consider him for a promotion.

The state’s high court had ruled on two other matters involving Detective Sgt. Michael R. Cox raising issues with a June 16, 2018, lieutenant promotional exam.

Through his attorney, S. David Worhatch, Cox filed a request Dec. 30 with the Supreme Court to overturn an Oct. 10 decision by the 7th District Court of Appeals in favor of the city after taking only written arguments on whether to dismiss the appeal and not the merits of the case.

The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to accept jurisdiction, which ends the matter.

City Deputy Law Director Adam Buente said: “The law department is pleased that the Ohio Supreme Court has declined jurisdiction over Detective Sgt. Cox’s appeal, which in no uncertain terms confirms that our civil service commission acted lawfully in disposing of Mr. Cox’s appeal back in 2019.”

Cox said: “As disappointed as I am with the ruling of the Supreme Court not to hear my appeal from the decision of the court of appeals to vacate a trial court’s decision in my favor, there is no comparison when it comes to the disappointment I have with the Youngstown civil service commissioners and the current and past attorneys in the law department.”

Cox objected to how the city civil service commission ranked applicants for a lieutenant promotional test. Mayor Jamael Tito Brown promoted William Ward to lieutenant May 20, 2019, based on scores on a written civil service test given almost a year earlier.

Cox and other detective sergeants took a promotional test on June 16, 2018. During the test, Cox pointed out that portions of it were based on an outdated examination book.

The commission certified the results of the test on Aug. 15, 2018, with Ward at the top of the list and Cox finishing third, two points behind Ward. The commission chose to give credit for the four questions from the outdated book to everyone taking the exam.

Cox said: “The errors that were made with the creation and grading of the promotional exam in 2018 and how those mistakes may have changed the outcome of the results and the decision of who to promote to lieutenant in the police department are details both the commissioners and their attorneys have now seen. However, instead of conducting an evidentiary hearing required by the city’s civil service rules to investigate and fix any problems that would have surfaced by way of the evidence, the civil service commissioners consciously chose not to conduct a hearing and cited timeliness of my appeal as their reason.”

City lawyers have long argued in court that Cox didn’t file a timely appeal so the commission wouldn’t consider it.

Cox said between himself and the city, more than $250,000 in legal fees were spent on this matter.

He said: “The majority of the $250,000 was Youngstown taxpayer money spent by the city to hire outside counsel who eventually filed appeal after appeal to prevent a civil service hearing from being conducted. That hearing would have cost me and the taxpayers zero dollars had it been scheduled by the commissioners in a timely fashion when I originally appealed.”

Cox said his goal was to find out who scored the highest on the 2018 promotional exam.

Cox brought the case about Brown’s decision to the Supreme Court, which ruled Aug. 18, 2021, that the officer “did not file a timely appeal” opposing the 2019 commission’s decision. But the court also ruled that the commission didn’t provide “a final and appealable order” to Cox about the decision.

In that case, the court stated Cox had 30 days from July 17, 2019 — the day the commission approved the minutes from its June 19, 2019, meeting in which it determined the case was concluded — to appeal to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Cox failed to do so in those 30 days. He instead pursued an appeal to the State Personnel Board of Review, which dismissed it.

Cox filed with the commission a “motion for entry of final appealable order and motion for reconsideration” on May 20, 2020. The commission told Cox at its June 17, 2020, meeting that it would take no further action because the request was untimely. Cox filed a case on July 17, 2020, in common pleas court.

Judge Maureen Sweeney determined May 16, 2022, that the commission “violated its own rule” by not issuing a “final and appealable order” and ordered the commission to do so in compliance with its own rules. The 7th District Court of Appeals agreed with Sweeney after the city appealed.

The city then filed an appeal June 28, 2022, with the Ohio Supreme Court to close out the Cox case contending the commission’s June 17, 2020, decision was a final order and Sweeney didn’t have jurisdiction.

In its Aug. 30, 2023, decision, the Supreme Court disagreed with the city’s argument regarding the civil service commission’s 2020 ruling and ordered the matter referred back to Sweeney. But the court told the judge she didn’t have jurisdiction over Cox’s 2019 administrative appeal because that had already been decided.

Sweeney ruled June 27 that Cox was correct in asserting the commission committed a “clear error” in 2019 and repeated it in 2020 when it did not convene an evidentiary hearing. On July 12, she rejected the city’s motion to reconsider and the city appealed July 27 to the 7th District.

In its Oct. 10 decision, the 7th District wrote because the “commission had lost jurisdiction to reconsider either its 2018 or 2019 decisions long before Cox filed his May 14, 2020, motion” that latter decision, “which formed the basis of Cox’s administrative appeal to the trial court was a nullity,” the appeals court ruled. “Any judgment resulting from such a motion, including the trial court’s June 27 order that is the subject of this appeal, is likewise a nullity.”

The appeals court ruled Cox’s motions for consideration by the civil service commission were untimely and agreed with the city that Sweeney “patently and unambiguously lacked continuing jurisdiction over Cox’s administrative appeal.”