|
|
Teresa L. Angel v. Eric J. Reed et al., Allstate Insurance Company, Case no. 2007-0758
11th District Court of Appeals (Geauga County)
Evelyn Klein et al. v. Alvin Moutz, Case no. 2007-1551
9th District Court of Appeals (Summit County)
Board of Education of the Columbus City Schools and Board of Education of the South-Western City Schools v. Franklin County Board of Revision, Franklin County Auditor and Max E. Cougill, Case no. 2007-1086
State Board of Tax Appeals
Cincinnati School District Board of Education v. Hamilton County Board of Revision, the Hamilton County Auditor and Anchor Lyons Limited Partnership, Case no. 2007-1217
State Board of Tax Appeals
Teresa L. Angel v. Eric J. Reed et al., Allstate Insurance Company, Case no. 2007-0758
11th District Court of Appeals (Geauga County)
ISSUE: Under Ohio’s auto insurance laws, does the time limit for an injured person to file an uninsured motorist claim against his or her own policy begin to run from the date of an accident, or from the date on which the injured party discovers that the at-fault driver’s claim to have liability coverage was false?
BACKGROUND: Theresa Angel was injured in June 2001 while riding in a vehicle driven by Eric Reed. Reed informed Angel and police that he was covered by a liability insurance policy that would pay for her injuries. In May 2003, Angel filed suit against Reed, but voluntarily dismissed the case in March 2004 after she was unable to serve him with the complaint. In May 2004, Angel learned that Reed’s auto insurance policy had been cancelled three months before the accident, leaving him without liability coverage that would pay for her damages. In July 2004, Angel filed a claim to recover her accident damages through the uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage in her own policy issued by Allstate. Allstate denied coverage on the basis that Angel had not filed her claim within two years after the date of the accident, as required under her policy.
Angel filed suit in the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas in February 2005 seeking damages from both Reed and Allstate. The trial court granted summary judgment to Allstate based on Angel’s failure to file her UM/UIM claim within the two-year limitation period in her policy. Angel appealed. On review, the 11th District Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Angel’s cause of action against Allstate did not arise until she discovered that Reed was uninsured in May 2004, and her July 2004 UM claim against the Allstate policy was therefore timely.
Allstate now asks the Supreme Court to overrule the 11th District and reinstate the trial court’s ruling that the two-year limitation period in their policy began to run on the date of the accident. They note that claims asserted under an insurance policy are contractual in nature and are not normally subject to the “discovery rule” that Ohio courts have applied to delay the running of a limitation period in a tort case until the date an injured party “discovered or reasonably should have discovered” a cause of action against a defendant. They also argue that no “discovery” period should be applicable in this or similar cases because all Angel or another injured motorist has to do to ascertain whether she needed to file a UM claim under her own policy was to call or write the at-fault driver’s purported insurer to verify his coverage.
Attorneys for Angel respond that she made three attempts to serve Reed with the lawsuit she filed against him within two years after the date of the accident, but was unable to do so and thus to compel him to provide specific information about his alleged liability insurance coverage. They point to language in Angel’s Allstate policy stating that no UM claim would be paid until and unless the insured had first recovered the full amount of any liability coverage available under the at-fault driver’s insurance. Under those circumstances, they contend, it was impossible for Angel to assert any claim she might have against her own Allstate UM coverage until she learned that she would not be able to recover all of her damages from Reed’s insurance. Because Angel was unable to discover whether she had a claim against Allstate until May of 2004, they argue, the 11th District was correct in ruling that the two-year limitation period in the Allstate policy could not begin to run until that date.
Contacts
Perrin I. Sah, 330.405.5061, for Allstate Insurance Company.
Martin S. Delahunty III, 440.442.6677, for Theresa Angel.
Evelyn Klein et al. v. Alvin Moutz, Case no. 2007-1551
9th District Court of Appeals (Trumbull County)
ISSUE: Does a state law that allows a tenant to recover its attorney fees in a successful lawsuit against a landlord authorize a trial court to include in such an award an amount to cover the tenant’s legal fees for pursuing an appeal of an initial unfavorable ruling by the trial court?
BACKGROUND: In January 2006, tenants Evelyn and Harry Klein of Akron filed suit against their former landlord, Alvin Moutz, in Akron Municipal Court alleging that Moutz had wrongfully refused to refund their security deposit after they moved out of their apartment. In their complaint, the Kleins asked the court to award them a refund of their deposit, additional damages against Moutz and reimbursement of their court costs and reasonable attorney fees, as provided in R.C. 5321.16. The trial court entered judgment in favor of the Kleins and awarded them $930 plus interest and court costs, but denied recovery of their attorney fees. They appealed, and the 9th District Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case to the municipal court with a directive to determine and award reasonable attorney fees.
In its subsequent decision, the municipal court awarded the Kleins the entire amount of their attorney fees incurred at the trial level, $1,725, but denied their request for an additional $1,025 in legal fees they had incurred in pursuing their appeal to the 9th District. The trial judge ruled that R.C. 5321.16(C) does not authorize an award of attorney fees for appellate services, and also found that an award of appellate fees in this case would be unreasonable in light of the amount of actual damages.
The Kleins appealed again. The 9th District affirmed the municipal court’s holding that appellate fees are not recoverable under R.C. 5321.16(C), holding that such recovery may only be made through a petition in the court of appeals. The 9th District subsequently certified that its ruling on the recoverability of appellate fees in a trial court was in conflict with an earlier ruling on the same issue by the 6th District Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court has agreed to review the case to resolve the conflict between appellate districts.
Attorneys for the Kleins assert that the legislative purpose underlying the legal provision that allows recovery of a successful tenant’s attorney fees is to insure that a tenant whose security deposit has been wrongfully withheld is able to recover at no cost to himself. Because the trial court found their claim against Moutz to be meritorious but then erred by not making an award of attorney fees, they argue, the only avenue open to the Kleins to be made whole was to pursue an appeal, which unavoidably required incurring additional legal fees. While it is unfortunate that the trial court’s error required both landlord and tenant to incur additional litigation expense, they assert, the only way to achieve the legislature’s intended outcome is for tenants who win at both the trial and appellate levels to be awarded both their reasonable trial and appellate legal expenses.
With regard to the 9th District’s holding that appellate legal fees may only be recovered through a petition in the court of appeals, the Kleins cite multiple state and federal court decisions ruling that trial courts may make such awards. From a practical perspective, they argue, a trial court considering a tenant’s request for attorney fees is in the best position to review documentary evidence and hear direct testimony and cross examination of attorneys regarding the “reasonableness” of claimed fees and expenses, and to make an award that would then be reviewable by an intermediate court of appeals. If such petitions may only be initiated in appellate courts, they note, then those courts would be forced to conduct evidentiary proceedings for which they are not well equipped, and their decisions would only be reviewable by the Supreme Court – creating unreasonable demands on this Court’s time and resources.
Moutz did not file an appellee brief and therefore will not participate in oral argument before the Court.
Contacts
Neil P. Agarwal, 330.554.7700, for
Evelyn and Harry Klein.
Alvin Moutz, pro se (no contact information was provided).
Board of Education of the Columbus City Schools and Board of Education of the South-Western City Schools v. Franklin County Board of Revision, Franklin County Auditor and Max E. Cougill, Case no. 2007-1086
State Board of Tax Appeals
Cincinnati School District Board of Education v. Hamilton County Board of Revision, the Hamilton County Auditor and Anchor Lyons Limited Partnership, Case no. 2007-1217
State Board of Tax Appeals
NOTE: The two cases captioned above will be argued separately before the Court at its March 25 session, but are summarized together below because they raise the same legal issue and the arguments advanced by the parties in both cases are virtually identical. A third case raising the same issue, Rhodes v. Hamilton County Bd. of Revision, was orally argued on Feb. 5, 2008, and remains pending before the Court.
ISSUE: When a property was developed to suit a single, specialized corporate tenant that signed a long-term lease contract, and the property is later resold by the developer to investors subject to the tenant’s lease commitment, does the State Board of Tax Appeals overvalue the property for tax purposes by setting the resale price paid by the buyer as the true market value of the land and building?
BACKGROUND: A line of cases decided by the Supreme Court of Ohio has established the general principle that the price paid for a parcel of real property in a recent arm’s-length sale should be presumed to be the true value of that property for tax purposes, unless a party contesting that valuation can show that the sale price did not reflect the property’s real market value.
In these two cases, the Court is asked to determine whether the State Board of Tax Appeals (BTA) erred in adopting the recent sale prices of properties occupied by a Columbus Walgreen’s store and a Cincinnati Wal-Mart as the true market value of those properties, despite the facts that a) the properties were developed with non-standard features specifically to suit Walgreen’s and Wal-Mart, and b) the sale prices included long-term contractual commitments by Walgreen’s and Wal-Mart to continue their tenancy in those properties.
Attorneys for the property owners urge the Court to reverse the BTA and reinstate significantly lower tax valuations that were adopted by the Hamilton County and Franklin County boards of revision. They argue that the boards of revision properly relied on testimony by an expert witness that the sale prices paid by the buyers overstated the real market value of the land and buildings because those amounts reflected the future value of long-term lease commitments by reliable and credit-worthy corporate tenants, and also because special features built into the structures uniquely enhanced their “value-in-use” to Walgreen’s and Wal-Mart, but would not convey comparable value to alternative occupants if the properties were offered for sale on the open market.
Attorneys representing the Columbus and Cincinnati school boards urge the Court to follow its 2005 ruling in Berea City Schools v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Revision and other recent decisions holding that the purchase price paid by a buyer in a recent arm’s length sale should be adopted as the true tax value of a property even when the sale price reflects long-term lease commitments by tenants and/or includes the buyer’s receipt of advantageous financial terms not intrinsic to the land or structures being acquired.
Contacts
Nicholas M.J. Ray, 614.442.8885, for Max E. Cougill (owner of the Columbus Walgreen’s property) and Anchor Lyons Limited Partnership (owner of the Cincinnati Wal-Mart property).
Mark H. Gillis, 614.228.5822, for Columbus Public Schools Board of Education.
David DiMuzio, 513.621.8888, for Cincinnati School District Board of Education.
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.