BROOK PARK, Ohio -- A legal situation that emerged as the result of a 2001 agreement initially brokered between the cities of Cleveland and Brook Park remains unresolved, but appears to be headed back to trial court.
Brook Park Law Director Carol Horvath announced at Tuesday’s (Oct. 3) City Council meeting that efforts to get justice for 70 homeowners on the city’s west end -- whose properties the City of Cleveland agreed to purchase as part of a since-abandoned plan to build a new runway at Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport -- remain in play.
“This is our longest trending lawsuit,” Horvath said, having indicated in 2017 when it was filed that the litigation was a “last resort” action.
She told council that the court of appeals rendered a decision Sept. 21.
“The case was reversed and is remanded back to the trial court,” Horvath said. “We finally have had an opportunity to present arguments taken seriously by the court of appeals. The trial court will determine some matters of fact … and hopefully render a judgment in accordance with the court of appeals decision.”
Horvath added that the appeals court “eliminated the argument of standing for the City of Cleveland.”
“They found that clearly Brook Park had sufficient standing to represent our residents in this matter,” she explained. “They also found we were within the statute of limitations in order to file this, which is an important ruling.”
The trial court will “do some fact-finding on the issues of impossibility and latches,” Horvath said, going on to say that Cleveland’s claim of impossibility contends that because Cleveland no longer wants to build the runway, it should not be forced to buy the homes.
“I believe we’ll be able to present sufficient facts and set a basis where we’ll be able to refute that and sufficiently show our damages in that regard,” she said. “Latches is an argument that talks about a party waiting too long to file something.
“It’s very encouraging the court of appeals found we were within the statute of limitations,” she added. “That makes the latches argument very much harder (for Cleveland to prove), because obviously we filed it timely, as far as the statute goes.”
Cleveland could appeal the court of appeals ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court, Horvath said.
She estimated a wait of 30 days or so “to see what direction this particular case is headed.”
“We (in the Law Department and co-counsel) are all very, very happy that finally someone has looked at this case and … given it the consideration it deserves,” Horvath said.
“I’m very glad we got the result that we did.”
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