Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Pavan Parikh says he doesn’t anticipate additional litigation related to online eviction records. The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled against the clerk in a dispute between his office and the Municipal Court judges.
The dispute began three years ago, when Parikh announced a new policy: inactive eviction records older than three years would be removed from the Clerk of Courts website. The cases were either dismissed, which means the eviction didn’t go through, or had been fully resolved with no outstanding payment due.
Parikh says the decision stemmed from an effort to decrease housing barriers for renters.
“We know that people are using our website — the public-facing version of our website — instead of going through the process of a full background check or a full credit check,” Parikh told WVXU. “And so they are pulling this information up and maybe not doing the deep dive and seeing if the case had been dismissed or not.”
The records removed from online access are still considered public record, and were still available in person. Parikh says he was confident he had the authority to remove inactive evictions from the Clerk of Courts website.
“It is on our website that we control; it was on our website that we pay for,” Parikh said. “We are a separately, independently elected office. We are part of the executive branch of government and not the judicial branch of government.”
The Municipal Court judges disagreed. They initially asked the Clerk’s Office to post a disclaimer on the website that “a remote search for eviction records would not include eviction actions that are greater than three years of age.” Parikh refused, instead offering a more general disclaimer that says his office is not required to offer “remote access” to a particular case file or document.
Parikh says he met with the Municipal Court judges in late June 2023, but the meeting didn’t resolve the disagreement. Here’s a timeline of key events:
- Oct. 2023: Municipal Court Judges issued an administrative order directing Parikh to rescind the eviction records policy.
- Nov. 2023: Parikh did not comply with the order. He requested that the county appoint outside counsel to mediate the dispute, since the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office is the standard representation for both the Clerk’s Office and the Municipal Court Judges.
- March 2024: Municipal Court Judges informed Parikh he could be held in contempt of court if he did not comply with the administrative order.
- Sep. 2024: A panel of three judges from the 12th District Court of Appeals sided with the judges and issued an order to restore the records. Parikh appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
- Nov. 2024: The Ohio Supreme Court denied Parikh’s request to keep the records off the website while the court considered the case. All previously removed eviction records were restored to the website.
- June 2025: The Ohio Supreme Court decided unanimously to uphold the Appeals Court decision siding with the judges; the court declined to hear oral arguments in the cases. This was the final decision.
The unsigned Supreme Court opinion says a county clerk of courts is not required by law to provide electronic access to eviction records, but: “Parikh had previously placed the records of all eviction cases online. He then removed the records of eviction cases that were more than three years old, making a policy decision that the privacy rights of the defendants outweighed the public’s right to know about the cases. This policy decision to restrict public access to certain court records infringes on the judges’ authority to make such decisions.”
Parikh says he’s looking ahead, focusing on assisting the public through the Clerk of Courts Help Center.
“We have complied with the orders,” he told WVXU. “We have looked at, what are our options potentially going forward through addressing some of these issues with the legislature? But we are committed to trying to think of other ways to continue to try to level the playing field, because that's really what this was.”
Nearly all landlords in eviction court are represented by an attorney — state law requires many of them to have legal representation — but less than 10% of tenants have legal representation.
Tenants without an attorney are significantly more likely to be evicted. But even tenants who are not evicted would benefit from having an attorney who can ask the magistrate to remove a dismissed eviction from “electronic access.” It’s a routine request that magistrates routinely approve, but a tenant either needs to have an attorney present or needs to know exactly how to make the request themselves.
Municipal Court weighs in
Municipal Court Presiding Judge Josh Berkowitz did not respond to multiple requests for comment over the course of four weeks. The Cincinnati Enquirer published an op-ed on June 18 in which Berkowitz called the former policy “an alarming overreach of power.”
“Parikh was intent on removing any information he deemed undesirable from his website,” Berkowitz wrote. “[I]n a display of hubris, he defied the judges, escalated tensions, and sued the entire municipal court bench.”
Berkowitz claimed Parikh “refused to meet” with him to discuss the matter and “shut the door on any further negotiations.” Parikh disputes that claim, saying Berkowitz did not become presiding judge and request a meeting until January 2024.
“No meeting was denied, but I requested counsel be present for any meeting after the first order was issued, due to the legal issues that might have been brought up in such a meeting,” Parikh said in a statement.
Emails provided to WVXU show Parikh offered several possible meeting dates.
“The process to be assigned counsel took many months, and by the time we were able to discuss with counsel, we had been sent the letter threatening contempt,” Parikh’s statement says.
Meanwhile, Parikh points to other Ohio counties with the same policy. That includes Franklin County, which started removing old inactive eviction records from the website in January 2020. The Franklin County Municipal Court Clerk’s Office confirmed to WVXU that the policy is still in place.
Asked whether the Ohio Supreme Court ruling could affect those other counties, Parikh responded: “I think as long as the judges of those particular courts don't order them to rescind the policy, then they're going to continue to operate as they currently are.”
What happens next?
Parikh says his office is working to provide more resources through the Help Center, including a significant expansion of same-day representation for tenants facing eviction.
The program started as a pilot funded, in part, by the city of Cincinnati. Attorney Shannon Price, also a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, provides free representation to eligible tenants two days a week.
Only tenants who live in the city of Cincinnati are eligible. And although eviction hearings are scheduled every weekday morning, only tenants with a hearing on a Tuesday or Thursday can take advantage of the service.
That will change by the end of the year, thanks to a couple of grants to expand the program to five days a week and to any resident of Hamilton County.
Landlords filed 6,154 evictions in Hamilton County in the first six months of 2025, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
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