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Kathryn Stridsberg v. GEICO General Insurance Company, Case no. 2005-2128
1st District Court of Appeals (Hamilton County)
Discount Cellular, Inc. et al. v. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, Case nos. 2005-2209, 2005-2368, 2005-2369, and 2005-2370
Disciplinary Counsel v. Tim M. Watterson, Case no. 2006-1198
(Stark County)
Kathryn Stridsberg v. GEICO General Insurance Company, Case no. 2005-2128
1st District Court of Appeals (Hamilton County)
ISSUE: When an Ohio student who lived with her parents begins attending college away from home, and the parents then move to another state taking some of the student's belongings, does the student's listing of her grandmother's Ohio residence as a home address with the university in order to continue paying in-state tuition disqualify her as a “resident” of her parents' new home, and therefore bar her from recovering under her parents' auto insurance policy for accident injuries caused by an uninsured motorist?
BACKGROUND: In this case, GEICO Insurance Co. denied medical expense and uninsured motorist (UM) coverage for serious head injuries suffered by 18-year-old Kathryn Stridsberg in December 2001 while she was a passenger in a car driven by an uninsured motorist. Stridsberg sought recovery under a GEICO policy purchased by her parents that provided medical expense and UM coverage for themselves and any relatives “residing in the same household” with the parents. Prior to August 2001, when she started her freshman year at Kent State University, Kathryn lived with her parents at their home in South Vienna, Ohio. During her first semester of college, where she lived in a dormitory, her father accepted a new job and the family relocated to Zionsville, Pa., on Nov. 1, 2001.
Kathryn, who had obtained federal student aid as an Ohio resident based on in-state tuition rates, listed her grandmother's home in Springfield, Ohio, as a home address with the university. During her Christmas break from classes at Kent State, Kathryn, who had no car or driver license, stopped at her grandmother's home in Springfield for a day and then rode with her sister, Megan, who was attending Ohio State University in Columbus and had a car, to her parents' new home in Pennsylvania where she spent 10 days. She returned to her grandmother's home for a few days before classes resumed, and was staying there on Dec. 28 when she was injured in a single-car accident while riding with a high school friend who was uninsured.
When GEICO rejected her claim for medical expense and UM coverage under her parents' auto insurance policy, Kathryn filed suit in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas. The parties filed stipulations regarding the facts in the case, and GEICO moved for a declaratory judgment dismissing the claim on the basis that Kathryn could not be entitled to coverage because she was not a “resident” of her parents' home in Pennsylvania on the date of her injury. The trial court granted judgment in favor of the insurer. On review, the 1st District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's ruling.
Kathryn now asks the Supreme Court to reverse the 1st District and remand her case to the trial court on the basis that its declaratory judgment was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. Her attorneys point out that GEICO admitted as part of the stipulations of fact that Kathryn was a “resident” of her parents' home in South Vienna on the day she left for Kent State, and would have remained a “resident” in their home for insurance purposes (even though she was attending college in a different city) if they had not moved. They argue that the circumstance of her parents' move to Pennsylvania did nothing to change the fact that their home remained their daughter's home when she was not away at college. They also say the trial court and 1st District erred when they considered paperwork filed by Kathryn with the university rather than her actual conduct in finding that she was not a “resident” of her parents' new home under the terms of the GEICO policy. They also assert that the trial court should not have considered actions taken by Kathryn after the date of the accident, such as convalescing at her grandmother's house to be near her Springfield doctors and obtaining an Ohio driver license and license plates.
Attorneys for GEICO respond that Kathryn's parents applied for the policy under which she seeks coverage only after they moved to Pennsylvania, and did not name Kathryn as a covered driver or otherwise as a member of their household. They argue that the rulings of the trial and appellate courts finding that Kathryn was not a “resident” of her parents' new home in Pennsylvania should not be disturbed because they are supported by significant factual findings including that Kathryn listed her grandmother's address in Springfield, not her parents' new home in Pennsylvania, as a home address with Kent State; that she did not have a separate bedroom at the Pennsylvania house; that she had referred to the drive from Pennsylvania back to Springfield at the end of her Christmas break as “going home;” and that her mother corrected a police report by indicating that Kathryn's correct address was at her grandmother's home in Springfield, Ohio, not at the parents' home in Pennsylvania.
Contacts
Roger C. Stridsberg, 513.977.4211, for
Kathryn Stridsberg.
Danny M. Newman, 513.721.1311, for GEICO General Insurance Co.
Discount Cellular, Inc. et al. v. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, Case nos. 2005-2209, 2005-2368, 2005-2369, and 2005-2370
ISSUE:
BACKGROUND: This case involves several regulatory complaints filed with the PUCO by four different companies that purchased cellular phone airtime from Ohio wholesale providers Ameritech Mobile Communications and Airtouch Cellular, and resold that service to end users. The PUCO dismissed the complaints of all four resellers, and they have exercised their right to appeal the commission's rulings to the Supreme Court. Since the cases raise virtually identical legal issues, the Court has consolidated them for argument and decision.
Each of the plaintiff companies filed a complaint with the PUCO alleging that they had suffered financial losses because, prior to December 1999, the wholesale providers had violated PUCO competition rules that required wholesalers to sell airtime to independent resellers under the same rates, terms and conditions as they provided service to their own internal divisions selling retail cell phone service to the public. The competition rules, which were incorporated in a PUCO enactment identified as “Order 563,” also required wholesalers to maintain complete separation between their cellular service transmission operations and their internal divisions engaged in the “retail” sale of cell phone service to end users, and required wholesalers to maintain transaction records to document that internal and external retailers to whom they sold airtime were receiving equal treatment.
In December 1999, the PUCO adopted “Order 1700,” which eliminated virtually all of the pro-competition requirements of Order 563 and also stated that the commission would no longer accept or prosecute complaints against cellular communications companies under R.C. 4905.26, the section of state law that gives the PUCO exclusive jurisdiction over rate and service disputes involving regulated public utilities. When the plaintiffs in this case subsequently filed complaints based on alleged anti-competitive actions of the wholesalers prior to December 1999, the PUCO dismissed their actions as “stale claims” that it was precluded from hearing under the provisions of Order 1700.
The plaintiff reseller companies urge the Supreme Court to overrule the PUCO's dismissal of their complaints and order it to adjudicate their claims against the wholesale companies. They argue that the commission acted contrary to law in adopting Order 1700 because:
Attorneys representing the PUCO respond that the commission acted within its statutory authority and sound discretion in determining that, while the limited number of competitors in Ohio's cellular communications industry in the 1980s and early 90s justified the pro-competition provisions in Order 563, by 1999 an explosion in the number and competitiveness of cell phone companies serving Ohio had eliminated any need to continue enforcement of those guidelines, or for the commission to continue adjudicating rate or service disputes under R.C. 4905.26 as it does in other highly regulated utility industries.
They point out that the commission's adjudicatory duties under that statute are triggered only in cases where there are “reasonable grounds” to proceed, and argue that the long time lapses between alleged pre-1999 rule violations by the wholesalers and the filing of legal actions by some of the plaintiffs as late as 2005 represent unreasonable delays. With regard to notice and public hearing requirements, the PUCO argues that its adoption of the 1700 Order was not an act of rulemaking subject to the Administrative Procedures Act, but was rather the formulation of an “order” under authority conferred on the commission by R.C. 4927.03(A) to help deregulate and promote aggressive competition in the telecommunications industry. While the commission was required to give notice to all interested parties, they contend that this duty was met by a targeted mailing to interested attorneys and industry groups and circulation of proposed drafts of the 1700 Order for review and comment for several months before its adoption.
Contacts
Randy J. Hart 216.346.7376, for
Discount Cellular and the other appellants.
Steven T. Nourse, 614.466.4396, for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Disciplinary Counsel v. Tim M. Watterson, Case no. 2006-1198
(Stark County)
The Board of Commissioners on Grievance & Discipline has recommended that the law license of Canton attorney Tim M. Watterson be indefinitely suspended for multiple violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Supreme Court bar governance rules. Watterson has filed objections to the board's findings and recommendation and asks the Court to dismiss the disciplinary charges against him.
The board found that, after Watterson was notified of grievances filed against him by two sets of former bankruptcy clients with the Stark County Bar Association's certified grievance committee, Watterson not only failed to answer the complaints and otherwise cooperate with disciplinary authorities, but wrote letters and made telephone calls threatening the complaining clients and bar association committee members and ethics counsel, and made false accusations of theft, conspiracy and other illegal and improper acts by those who investigated and prosecuted him in a prior disciplinary case.
Watterson, whose license has been under suspension since September 2004 as a result of that prior ethics case, disputes the authority of the attorney discipline system to prosecute the client grievances that triggered the current case against him. He argues that the services he provided and fees he charged to the complaining clients in those cases fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of a federal bankruptcy court, and points to a motion granted by the court in one of those cases finding that he performed professional services for the client commensurate with the fees he collected. Watterson's objections to the board's findings repeat his earlier statements alleging that the earlier investigation resulting in his current license suspension was based on bias against him by lawyers serving on the Stark County grievance committee, and that the chair of the hearing panel and others involved in that case conspired to illegally seize documents from his office and deprive him of his law practice and reputation.
The Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which agreed to take over prosecution of the current ethics complaint following Watterson's accusations of bias by the Stark County Bar committee, emphasizes that the charges underlying its recommendation are not the original claims asserted against Watterson by his clients, but rather arise from Watterson's false statements and his refusal to acknowledge the authority of the state attorney discipline system to review his conduct and his professional duty under state bar governance rules to cooperate with disciplinary proceedings.
Contacts
Lori J. Brown, 614.461.0256, for the
Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Tim M. Watterson, pro se: 330.456.2262.
These summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information solely to help news reporters determine if they want to cover the arguments. The summaries are not part of the case record and are not considered by the Court at any point during its deliberations.
Parties interested in receiving additional information are encouraged to review the case file available in the Supreme Court Clerk's Office (614.387.9530), or to contact counsel of record.