## Facts

- Rebecca Kim kept a dog at her home in Columbus, Ohio.
- A neighbor complained that Kim’s dog barked constantly for about 90 minutes on May 13, 2004.
- The neighbor testified the barking was loud enough to be heard over a lawn mower and inside his house with windows closed and air conditioning running.
- A veterinarian visiting the neighbor’s home that day testified the dog barked incessantly for nearly an hour during his visit.
- Kim was cited under Columbus City Code 2327.14(A), which prohibits keeping an animal that emits sounds “unreasonably loud or disturbing” and of such “character, intensity, and duration” as to disturb neighborhood peace and quiet or be detrimental to life or health.

## Issues

1. Whether Columbus City Code 2327.14(A) is unconstitutionally vague on its face for failing to give ordinary notice of prohibited conduct and for permitting arbitrary enforcement.
2. Whether the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague as applied to Kim based on the evidence of her dog’s barking.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the court of appeals and upheld Kim’s conviction.
- The court held Columbus City Code 2327.14(A) is not unconstitutionally vague on its face.
- The court held the ordinance is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Kim.
- The court affirmed the municipal court’s judgment imposing a $100 fine plus costs.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal law is void for vagueness if it fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited or is so standardless that it authorizes or encourages discriminatory enforcement.
- Statutes and ordinances need not achieve mathematical certainty; they may use common, context-dependent terms if the overall text provides workable standards.
- An ordinance regulating animal noise is sufficiently definite when it targets only “unreasonably loud or disturbing” sounds and further limits liability to sounds whose character, intensity, and duration disturb neighborhood peace and quiet or harm life or health.
- Commonly used terms such as “reasonable” and “unreasonable” do not render a law vague when bounded by contextual elements that guide conduct and enforcement.
- A law may survive an as-applied vagueness challenge where the defendant’s conduct falls within the core of clearly prohibited behavior, even if hypothetical borderline cases exist.

## Conclusion

The Ohio Supreme Court concluded that Columbus City Code 2327.14(A) provides adequate notice and enforceable standards by tying prohibited animal noise to unreasonable loudness and to disturbance of neighborhood peace or harm to life or health; because Kim’s dog barked loudly and continuously for an extended period, the ordinance was constitutional both facially and as applied, and the conviction was affirmed.


City of Columbus v. Kim, 118 Ohio St. 3d 93, 886 N.E.2d 217 (Ohio 2008)