Bottom line
A party who appeals a civil protection order without first filing the objections Civ.R. 65.1(G) requires does not lose appellate jurisdiction, but forfeits review of the alleged errors that could have been raised by objection, and plain-error review is not available as a substitute. Here, that meant no jurisdictional dismissal, but an affirmance of the protection order.
The question: is the Civ.R. 65.1(G) objection requirement jurisdictional?
After a full hearing, a magistrate in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas granted A.A. a civil stalking protection order against S.P., and the trial court adopted the magistrate's decision and entered the order under Civ.R. 65.1 (¶ 3, 4). S.P. filed no objections and went straight to the Tenth District, which dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction (¶ 4).
Civ.R. 65.1(G) says two things that pull in different directions. An order entered under Civ.R. 65.1(F)(3)(c) is a final, appealable order, but a party must timely file objections before filing an appeal (¶ 7, 10). The Tenth District treated the second sentence as jurisdictional; the First, Third, and Eighth Districts did not (¶ 12, 13). The Tenth District certified the conflict, and the Supreme Court consolidated it with S.P.'s discretionary appeal (¶ 4, 5).
The holding: jurisdiction exists, but the errors are forfeited
Justice Shanahan wrote for the court, joined by Chief Justice Kennedy and Justices DeWine, Deters, and Hawkins. The court answered the certified question no: failing to object under Civ.R. 65.1(G) does not deprive a court of appeals of jurisdiction over an appeal from a final civil-protection-order judgment (¶ 1, 8). But a party who does not file the required objections forfeits appellate review of the alleged errors that could have been raised by objection, and Civ.R. 65.1 does not preserve plain-error review in their place (¶ 1, 23, 24). The court affirmed the Tenth District's judgment as modified, so that it affirms the trial court's protection order rather than dismissing the appeal (¶ 2, 24).
Justice Brunner, joined by Chief Justice Kennedy, concurred and urged that protection-order judgments and forms carry a conspicuous warning about the consequence of not objecting (¶ 25, 28). Justice Fischer concurred in part and dissented in part: he agreed that plain error is unavailable but would have held the objection requirement jurisdictional and simply affirmed the dismissal (¶ 29, 38).
The reasoning: finality, preservation, and the text of two rules
On jurisdiction, the court started from Article IV, Section 3(B)(2) of the Ohio Constitution and R.C. 2505.02: once a trial court enters a final order, the court of appeals has jurisdiction to review it (¶ 9). Civ.R. 65.1(G) expressly calls the order final and appealable, and nothing in the rule strips jurisdiction when objections are missing (¶ 11). Relying on its earlier decision in Smith v. May, 2020-Ohio-61, the court repeated that not every mandatory requirement is jurisdictional (¶ 10).
Jurisdiction, though, was only the first step:
“But appellate jurisdiction over a judgment does not relieve a party of the obligation to preserve alleged errors for appellate review.” (¶ 15)
The court adopted the approach of Hill v. Ferguson, 2022-Ohio-13 (1st Dist.), and Danison v. Blinco, 2019-Ohio-2767 (3d Dist.), holding that the objection requirement “is a mandatory rule of preservation” (¶ 17). It rejected the Eighth District's view in M.W. v. D.M., 2018-Ohio-392 (8th Dist.), that the defect is forfeited if the appellee does not raise it:
“the court of appeals’ ability to deny review of the alleged errors does not depend on whether the opposing party raises the issue.” (¶ 18)
S.P.'s due-process argument, based on a judgment notice that called the order final and appealable without mentioning objections, failed because the rule's mandatory terms supply the notice (¶ 19).
On plain error, the court contrasted Civ.R. 53(D)(3)(b)(iv), which expressly preserves plain-error review when a party fails to object to a magistrate's decision, with Civ.R. 65.1, which contains no comparable language (¶ 21, 22). Citing Goldfuss v. Davidson, 1997-Ohio-401, for the narrow reach of civil plain error, it held the omission significant (¶ 20, 22):
“We decline to read into Civ.R. 65.1 an exception that its text does not contain.” (¶ 23)
Why it matters for Ohio appeals
Protection-order appeals are frequent, and the objection step often decides them. In a full-text search of a database of Ohio appellate decisions (pulled October 29, 2026), 28 court of appeals decisions decided from January 1, 2024 through October 28, 2026 mention Civ.R. 65.1(G), across nine districts. The database codes 8 of them as dismissals (in the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Districts) and the other 20 as affirmances.
After A.A., the outcome for an appellant who skipped objections is the same as before: the protection order stands. What changes is the route: the Tenth District's jurisdictional dismissal was error, and the court modified the judgment into an affirmance of the protection order (¶ 14, 24). The court also rejected the Eighth District's practice of reaching the merits when the appellee does not raise the missing objections (¶ 18). For preservation and plain error generally, the opinion is a clear statement that civil plain error depends on the text of the governing rule: Civ.R. 53 keeps it, Civ.R. 65.1 does not (¶ 21, 22).
Finality decides whether the court of appeals can hear the case; preservation decides what it can review once it does. Justice Fischer criticized the result as requiring full briefing and argument in appeals that can end only in affirmance (¶ 37).
Practice pointers
- Object first, every time. Calendar the Civ.R. 65.1(F)(3)(d)(i) objection period, fourteen days from the court's filing of the order, the moment a protection order is adopted. Timely objections stay the time for appeal until the court rules on them (¶ 16, 33).
- Do not count on plain error. Unlike a Civ.R. 53 magistrate's decision, a Civ.R. 65.1 order gives no plain-error fallback for errors that objections could have raised (¶ 22, 23).
- Remember the order is not stayed. Filing objections does not stay execution of the order (¶ 33).
- Appellees: brief the forfeiture anyway. The court of appeals may deny review on its own (¶ 18), but the issue belongs in the appellee's brief. A motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction rests on the reasoning the court rejected (¶ 14).
- Watch for errors objections could not raise. The forfeiture reaches alleged errors that could have been raised by objection (¶ 1, 24). Whether any category falls outside that description is a question the opinion does not address.
The opinion
Supreme Court of Ohio · Decided October 28, 2026
A.A. v. S.P., 2026-Ohio-4205
This analysis is published for Ohio attorneys and is not legal advice. It reflects the opinion as released; slip opinions are subject to formal revision before publication in the Ohio Official Reports. Appellate Ohio was not counsel in this case.