COLUMBUS, Ohio (Legal Newsline) - Drivers who leased their cars and failed to contest tickets handed out by Cleveland speeding cameras are barred by the doctrine of res judicata from suing to recover the money, the state’s highest court ruled, throwing out a class action that had produced a $4.1 million judgment.
Several drivers of leased vehicles sued the city for unjust enrichment after Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals ruled in 2009 that only a “vehicle owner,” not a lessee, could be liable for speeding penalties under the language of the city ordinance setting up the speeding cameras. The plaintiff in that case was a law firm that leased its cars and pursued the administrative appeals process specified in the ordinance until the end, before suing in court. After the appeals court ruled, Cleveland amended its ordinance to included drivers of leased vehicles.
Unlike the law firm, the other drivers of leased cars had paid their tickets and admitted liability under the law. A trial court certified their case as a class action anyway and the Eighth District affirmed, saying saying res judicata didn’t prevent the plaintiffs from suing to recover fines that turned out to be illegal. Cleveland appealed and the Ohio Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court because there was no final, appealable order for the Eighth District to affirm.
The trial court then entered partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs and awarded $4.1 million in compensation, rejecting the class’s request for an additional $1.8 million in interest. The Eighth District affirmed the judgment and Cleveland appealed again to the Supreme Court.
This time, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment, saying res judicata prevented the plaintiffs who paid their fines from recovering anything from the city.
“By paying their civil fines and not disputing their liability …appellees admitted their liability for their traffic violations recorded by the city’s automated-traffic-enforcement cameras,” the court concluded in a Dec. 29 opinion by Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy. “That ended the case between appellees and the city as to those incidents.”
Since-retired Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor dissented, joined by two other justices. The law firm that actually challenged its tickets through the administrative appeals process ran up late fees and received letters from the city threatening to report its delinquencies to credit bureaus, the justice wrote.
“According to the lead opinion, the only path available to appellees to avoid the application of res judicata and to recover the fines the city had improperly collected from vehicle lessees under the city’s program was for appellees to subject themselves to an expensive and lengthy legal process while receiving threats about the validity of their legal actions, threats of increased penalties, and negative hits to their credit scores,” she wrote. “This is hardly an example of a `fair adversary proceeding’ for which the doctrine of res judicata was meant to endorse.”