There apparently will be no appeal of this week’s Ohio Supreme Court ruling that went against Warren’s police union’s challenge to the the city over ranking officer promotions, according to the union’s legal counsel.

“I don’t believe there is any avenue for appeal,” Attorney Daniel Leffler, representing the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, told 21 News Friday when asked to comment on the case that had been fought for more than five years.

The OPPA had filed its first legal challenge in 2015 after the city abolished the positions of one captain and lieutenant in an authorized strength ordinance. The union argued that those two positions should have been filled by the next ranking officers. Prior to the high court ruling, the union’s case received a setback when in 2019, the 11th District Court of Appeals sided with the city—a decision appealed by the OPBA to the Ohio Supreme Court.

21 News reported exclusively Wednesday that the high court rejected the union’s request to overturn the appellate court ruling in a 4-3 opinion that referred to the OPBA legal arguments as “flawed.”

Leffler said he believes the majority opinion will result in “inconsistent applications of existing applications” because of different rulings in similar cases as far back as the 1990s. “This is a deviation from prior precedent,” he said. The attorney also took exception to a statement by Warren law Director Enzo Cantalamessa to 21 News that the ruling should be considered “settled law.”

“This will send civil service rules into chaos through the state,” he predicted. He said he agrees with the dissenting opinion of Justice Sharon Kennedy who would have ruled against the city because, she said, it “failed to follow the statutory processes and thereby violated the seniority rights of the police officers involved in this case.”