24 August 2020 · 2 August 2023
From the divorce filing to the vexatious litigator declaration
Read downward. Each entry is a docket record of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. The marked entries are the turns.
- 24 August 2020
She files for divorce
Mutual restraining orders issue the same day, barring either spouse from harassing the other or interfering with the other’s time with the children.
Filed with the complaint is her sworn affidavit. In it she states that he had for several months been “using and/or abusing alcohol and non-prescription marijuana on a daily basis,” that his behaviour under the influence was “unstable, irrational, threatening, harassing,” and that his mental health had deteriorated.
These are her allegations, not findings. No court ruled on them. The divorce was granted on the ground of incompatibility. They are reproduced here because they are what she put before the court on day one, and because the court’s later orders — the mental-health conditions on his contact with the children — are only legible against them.
The parenting proceeding affidavit filed with the complaint is not reproduced.
- 9 October 2020
He pleads that the children are his
In his own Answer and Counterclaim, signed by his attorney, he states there are “two (2) children born as issue of said marriage,” names them, gives their dates of birth, and asks the court to allocate parental rights over them and to award him child support.
- 13 January 2021
His own lawyer withdraws, citing the rule for a client who insists on something repugnant
Attorney Stephen E. S. DaRay moved to withdraw as counsel of record, stating that “Counsel for Defendant must withdraw pursuant to Rule 1.16(b)(4) of the Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct.” The underlining is his.
Rule 1.16(b)(4) permits a lawyer to withdraw where “the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant or with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.”
What his client was insisting on is not in the record. A lawyer in that position is ordinarily bound to keep it confidential, and the rule’s own commentary says so. What is on the record is which door he chose to leave by.
From this point Horner represents himself in every filing that follows. Counsel served him at 2551 Indian Trail, Morristown, Tennessee — his parents’ house — nine days before they moved to intervene.
Motion to Withdraw as Counsel of Record, 13 January 2021, No. DR-20-382383 · Ohio Prof.Cond.R. 1.16(b)(4)
- 22 January 2021
His parents move to intervene
William Dean Horner and Kathy Hogarth Horner file to join the divorce and seek court-ordered visitation with their two grandchildren. Their filing gives their son’s address as their own house in Morristown, Tennessee.
Motion No. 438024 · Their filings are set out in full on His parents.
- 23 February – 15 March 2021
Eight motions in three weeks — five of them asking the court to hold his wife in contempt
Filed pro se: a demand for an update on the restraining order, a demand for a date of completion on ordered items, a request that she show cause, and five separate motions to hold her in contempt — four of them on a single day, 15 March.
On 31 March the court cleared the pile in one judgment entry. Six of his motions were denied outright. The restraining-order motion was denied as “an improper discovery request”; the date-of-completion motion and two contempt motions were denied as “not properly before the Court at this time”; and two more contempt motions — alleging she had altered life insurance information — were denied because “no evidence of alteration was presented to the Court.”
One survived: on the fifth contempt motion, about the parties’ joint cell phone plan, his wife was given fourteen days to respond. In the same entry her motion for a support hearing was granted, and his parents’ motion to intervene was held in abeyance.
Motions 438771, 438841, 439005, 439323, 439324, 439325 and 439326 · Judgment Entry, 31 March 2021, Docket ID 116567253
- April 2021
Paternity, raised in the document about money
In a letter accompanying the financial affidavit the court had ordered him to file, he asks for paternity testing on both children before he will accept financial responsibility for them, and says he will make “formal pleas” to the judge for it.
- 1 June 2021
The magistrate closes it: nothing was ever filed
“No formal motion for paternity testing has been filed with the Court as of the date of this order,” and he “is presumed to be the natural father of the children by reason of the parties’ marriage.”
He never files one. No motion for paternity or genetic testing appears anywhere on the docket, at any point in the case.
- 9 July 2021
He reports the judge to the FBI
He submits a complaint to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center naming the judge hearing his divorce and the court’s director of family evaluation services, then files a copy of it into the divorce docket.
- 9 August 2021
He captions a filing “in civil disobedience”
The document is titled, by him, “Defendant’s Rejection of the Trial Order Submitted in Civil Disobedience.” It is a refusal to comply with a court order, filed with the court that made it.
- 23 August 2021
He reports two judges to the Supreme Court of Ohio
A disciplinary grievance against two Probate Court judges, alleging the order under which he had been committed was “at best improperly executed and at worst an outright forgery” showing “obvious tampering.” He lists seven claimed signs of it. He files a copy into the divorce docket.
- 5 – 22 October 2021
Grievances against his own lawyer, the police and the prosecutor — and his mother joins in
He files a grievance against his own defence attorney, then one against the Rocky River Police Department and the city prosecutor. Both go into the divorce docket as exhibits.
His mother files a sworn affidavit in the case asserting that “prejudicial bias has occurred in this court” and that “Judge Jones showed prejudice” — and files with it a copy of a disciplinary grievance she had lodged against that same judge, on a form that instructs complainants to keep the grievance confidential.
The affidavit and the grievance are on His parents.
- 13 October 2021
The intervention is denied, and the court says why
“Through filings with the Court, the paternal grandparents demonstrate a lack of understanding of Defendant’s diagnosed mental health condition.” The court finds it would be against the children’s best interest to let them in, and assesses costs against William and Kathy Horner.
The ruling, and the filings it refers to, on His parents.
- 18 November 2021
He does not appear, and loses everything by default
The court finds he had “effectively withdrawn as a participant by his own pleading,” refused to take part in the Family Evaluation Services investigation so that it was terminated, told the court he no longer wanted Zoom contact with his children, and did not attend his own final hearing.
He is granted no visitation or contact whatsoever until he petitions the court, complies with its orders, and proves he is “mentally and physically fit.” The court also finds he removed his wife’s paycheck from their joint account and had paid no support since August 2020.
Judgment Entry of Divorce · Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations · No. DR-20-382383. The child support computation worksheet and the personal-property schedule are not reproduced.
- 13 – 28 December 2021
The divorce is over. He files eight more motions in sixteen days.
All eight ask the court to add material to the trial record, separately captioned firearm, tax returns, his mental health, father visitation and Zoom time, his physical fitness, perjurious affidavit and perjurious testimony. One runs to 83 pages.
Their exhibits include copies of his own earlier filings, police reports, printed emails, trial transcript extracts and web articles.
- 27 April – 17 November 2022
Four lawsuits in under seven months
Against his former mother-in-law (27 April, dismissed in July for failure to prosecute); against his ex-wife and her divorce attorney (12 May, decided against him on summary judgment); against his ex-wife and the Cleveland Clinic, her employer (23 June, summary judgment against him); and against his ex-wife and St. Vincent Charity Hospital (17 November).
Nos. CV-22-962585, CV-22-963377, CV-22-965121, CV-22-971495
- 1 September 2022
The court bars him from the building
Acting on her own motion, the Administrative Judge finds he had been “emailing the Judge and county court personnel with his theories of the Court’s collusion with the Director of the FBI, Sheriff’s Department, and others,” and that he “seems to be not of sound mind and a danger to the Court.”
He is enjoined from entering the courthouse, from harassing court personnel, and from contacting the court outside proceedings. All his hearings move to video.
- 3 – 5 October 2022
He tries to subpoena the Director of the FBI
In his suit against his ex-wife and the Cleveland Clinic he attempted to subpoena records from “Director of the FBI Christopher Wray,” from members of the Rocky River Police Department, from the Cuyahoga County Probate Court, and from the Rocky River Law Director. Opposing counsel recorded that he did the same thing in the defamation case — “in that case, just as in the present one.”
No. CV-22-965121 · recounted in the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and sanctions, 19 May 2023, and n.11
- 30 January – 27 April 2023
One statement by his fiancée, filed in three cases under three different labels
He filed a statement by Cristy Miller — described by opposing counsel as his “Amicus Witness” and “current fiancé” — as an “Amicus Brief and Discovery Evidence” in the Cleveland Clinic suit. On 30 January 2023 a nearly identical brief went into the civil stalking protection order case that the Cleveland Clinic had brought against him. On 27 April 2023 the same document was disclosed in the defamation case as an “Expert Report,” under the rule governing treating expert witnesses. She had treated no one.
Within its own pages the document calls itself an expert report, an amicus brief, an amicus affidavit and eyewitness testimony. It carries two signature blocks — one “Amicus and Eyewitness for Defendant,” the other, on the sworn page, “for Plaintiff.” Filed the same day, his notice called her an “FBI special agent, counter cyberterrorism unit (Ret.)”; her own report called her a “19 year undercover private subcontractor with the FBI (ret.).”
Nos. CV-22-965121, CV-22-969917, and the Clinic’s protection order petition of 1 Nov 2022 · plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and sanctions, 19 May 2023, n.12
See also. What the statement actually says, and what the court made of it, on his own words.
- 2 August 2023
Declared a vexatious litigator
Filings “duplicative, frivolous, abusive, and lacking legal grounds,” by a litigant who “repeatedly asserts the same narratives across cases, fails to conform to court rules, fails to support his claims with competent evidence or argument, and resorts to threats and harassment of the litigants and courts.”
Every element of that description had already appeared on the divorce docket, two years earlier, before any of the conduct the declaration was actually about.
See also. The declaration in full, and what followed it, on stalking and harassment. The same court, the same day, entered a permanent injunction.
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas · Domestic Relations Division, No. DR-20-382383 (Judge Tonya R. Jones; Magistrate Sharon Ditko-Bevione; Administrative Judge Leslie Ann Celebrezze) and General Division, No. CV-22-969917 (Judge Brendan J. Sheehan)
See also. Where it led: the vexatious litigator declaration, a $1,064,234.75 judgment, and a felony conviction.