Trumbull County Domestic Relations/Juvenile Division Court Judge David L. Engler disputes a state attorney’s claims to the Ohio Supreme Court that his lawsuit seeking to stop abortions in the state should be dismissed because of flawed legal arguments.

In response to the dismissal request by the state attorney general’s office, Engler, a pro-life Republican judge, wrote that he has legal standing to file the case because the state’s abortion law takes away his authority to consider abortions for minors if petitioned through a judicial-bypass hearing.

The right to an abortion in Ohio took effect in December 2023, a month after a reproductive rights constitutional amendment was approved by 57% of voters.

Engler filed the lawsuit April 11 with the state’s high court to stop abortions in the state because the constitutional amendment eliminated guardrails for minors, including through judicial-bypass hearings. Engler wrote that during the five years before the law took effect, the Trumbull County Juvenile court saw about two judicial-bypass petitions annually. Since then, there’s been none because of the reproductive rights law. Engler started serving as a judge in 2025.

Engler wrote: “This court should reject respondents’ attempt to escape judicial review of these issues. The motion to dismiss should be denied. Ohio’s Constitution, read as a whole, does not sanction the abrupt abolition of juvenile-court jurisdiction over bypass petitions by mere implication. (My) standing and the merits of (my) mandamus claim are clear. This court should allow the case to proceed so it can vindicate the principle that no branch of government may surrender or usurp the judicial power without explicit authority.”

The lawsuit was filed against Attorney General Dave Yost, Secretary of State Frank LaRose — both Republicans who oppose abortion — and the Ohio Ballot Board, which approves ballot language for statewide constitutional amendments.

In the case, Engler is seeking to stop abortions and force another vote on the constitutional amendment because people weren’t aware that minors could obtain abortions without parental or judicial consent when they considered it.

In a May 11 motion to dismiss, Julie Pfeiffer, an assistant attorney general, asked the court to dismiss Engler’s petition for a writ of mandamus for numerous reasons, including he “lacks standing because he has not alleged an injury that is fairly traceable to the conduct of any of the respondents.”

Pfeiffer wrote even if Engler could “adequately allege a cognizable injury, he has failed to allege that any such purported injury is fairly traceable to the conduct of the respondents. Nor could he. None of the respondents have any enforcement authority over the provision of the” abortion law.

In Engler’s May 20 response, he wrote he has legal standing because of the loss of the ability to have judicial-bypass hearings.

Engler wrote: “This is not an abstract or generalized grievance; it is an actual institutional injury to the judicial office. Ohio law recognizes that a public official has standing when governmental actions directly impairs the exercise of official duties or authority unique to that office.”

He added: “The bypass procedure is not some extraneous or discretionary function – it was established as a necessary judicial proceeding under Ohio law.” Also, even after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a woman’s right to abortions and gave that authority to the states, the Ohio law about judicial bypasses hasn’t been repealed, Engler wrote.

“Unless and until a competent authority declares it invalid, relator’s court retains a right – indeed, an obligation – to conduct bypass adjudications according to that statute and applicable rules,” Engler wrote.

Pfeiffer listed four other reasons why the court should dismiss the case, including the court lacking “jurisdiction over claims for declaratory and injunctive relief” which Engler seeks, Engler doesn’t have any clear legal right to judicial-bypass hearings – and if he does, the constitutional amendment “prevails over any conflicting statute,” “any claim related to the ballot language for the amendment is untimely,” and the required affidavit he filed doesn’t comply with the high court’s rules of practice.

Engler wrote the Supreme Court doesn’t lack jurisdiction in this case.

Pfeiffer wrote that Engler “is simply mistaken as his claims rest on the erroneous assumption that a constitutional amendment cannot prevail over a statutory grant of jurisdiction to Ohio’s juvenile courts.”

In response, Engler wrote the state’s motion “attempts to rewrite the Ohio Constitution by implication. They urge dismissal of a case alleging that judicial-bypass proceedings – historic adjudications governed by statute and rule – have effectively ceased,” and “this court is the guardian of judicial power; it should not be a bystander to its quiet elimination.”

Engler wrote the state “incorrectly” describes his lawsuit “as a belated challenge to the ballot measure. In reality, this is an as-applied challenge to current enforcement” and the state overstepped its authority “by treating juvenile-bypass proceeding as defunct. This claim arose only after the amendment’s adoption and enforcement, making it timely now.”

As for the issue with his affidavit, Engler wrote it can be easily rectified and the court’s precedent allows amendments “to cure such defects.”