Lycan v. The City of Cleveland

• Decision Date: 29 December 2022
• Docket Number: 2020-0341
• Citation: 2022 Ohio 4676
• Parties: Lycan et al., Appellees, v. The City of Cleveland, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

2022-Ohio-4676

Lycan et al., Appellees,
v.
The City of Cleveland, Appellant.

No. 2020-0341

Supreme Court of Ohio

December 29, 2022

Submitted September 7, 2021

Appeal from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, Nos. 107700 and 107737, 2019-Ohio-3510.

Bashein & Bashein Co., L.P.A., W. Craig Bashein, and John P. Hurst; Paul W. Flowers Co., L.P.A., Paul W. Flowers, and Louis E. Grube; and The Dickson Firm, L.L.C., and Blake A. Dickson, for appellees.

Mark D. Griffin, Cleveland Director of Law, and Craig J. Morice, Assistant Director of Law, for appellant.

Mayle, L.L.C., and Andrew R. Mayle, in support of neither party, for amicus curiae Susan Magsig.

Dworken & Bernstein Co., L.P.A., Patrick J. Perotti, and Frank A. Bartela, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Allyson Eighmey.

Dworken & Bernstein Co., L.P.A., Patrick J. Perotti, and Frank A. Bartela, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Nell Lindsay.

Garry E. Hunter, General Counsel, Ohio Municipal League; and Frost Brown Todd, L.L.C., Philip K. Hartmann, Yazan S. Ashrawi, and Christopher D. Thomas, urging reversal for amicus curiae Ohio Municipal League.

Bricker & Eckler, L.L.P., and Quintin F. Lindsmith, urging reversal for amicus curiae Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc.

Kennedy, J., announcing the judgment of the court.^[1]

{¶ 1} In this discretionary appeal from a judgment of the Eighth District Court of Appeals, we determine whether the payment of a civil fine for a traffic

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violation under a city's automated-traffic-enforcement program without disputing liability for the violation precludes those improperly ticketed under the program from raising a claim of unjust enrichment against the city in a separate action. Appellees are Janine Lycan, Thomas Pavlish, Jeanne Task, Lindsey Charna, Ken Fogle, John T. Murphy, and other members of a class seeking reimbursement for the fines collected by appellant, the city of Cleveland, for traffic violations by vehicle lessees that were recorded by the city's traffic-enforcement cameras. Appellees were issued citations and paid fines under the program, under which only owners of vehicles were liable for violations of the city's traffic ordinances. Just before the complaint in this case was filed, the Eighth District held in another case that the city's automated-traffic-enforcement ordinance did not apply to vehicle lessees. See Dickson & Campbell, L.L.C. v. Cleveland, 181 Ohio App.3d 238, 2009-Ohio-738, 908 N.E.2d 964, ¶ 39, 50, 55 (8th Dist).

{¶ 2} We determine that because appellees paid their fines without disputing the applicability of the city's automated-traffic-enforcement ordinance to vehicle lessees, appellees were barred by res judicata from raising their subsequent unjust-enrichment claim against the city. Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.

I. Relevant Background

A. The city's automated-traffic-enforcement program

{¶ 3} Cleveland Codified Ordinances ("CCO") 413.031 authorized the city's use of traffic-enforcement cameras. CCO 413.031(b) and (c) imposed liability on the "owner of a vehicle" caught on camera committing a red-light or speeding offense. The ordinance formerly defined "vehicle owner" as "the person or entity identified by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, or registered with any other State vehicle registration office, as the registered owner of a vehicle." Former CCO 413.031(p)(3). At the times relevant in this case, however, the city included

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vehicle lessees in its administrative definition of "owners" and sent vehicle lessees tickets for camera-detected violations.

{¶ 4} Under the city's automated-traffic-enforcement adjudication system, any ticket generated by an automated traffic camera (1) was reviewed by a Cleveland police officer, (2) was sent by first-class mail to or was personally served at the address of the registered owner of the vehicle, and (3) specified the manner in which the ticket could be appealed. CCO 413.031(h). The ordinance imposed a $100 fine for red-light violations, a $100 fine for speeding violations of up to 24 miles per hour over the speed limit, a $200 fine for speeding violations of 25 miles per hour or more over the speed limit, and a $200 fine for any speed violation committed in a school zone or construction zone. CCO 413.031(o). There were no criminal penalties for traffic violations detected by the cameras under the program. CCO 413.031(i).

{¶ 5} As for appeals under the program, the vehicle owner had to file a notice of appeal with the hearing officer within 21 days of the date listed on the ticket. CCO 413.031(k). The ordinance provided: "The failure to give notice of appeal or pay the civil penalty within this time period shall constitute a waiver of the right to contest the ticket and shall be considered an admission." Id. The ordinance set forth the procedure for appealing a ticket, stating: "Appeals shall be heard by the Parking Violations Bureau through an administrative process established by the Clerk of the Cleveland Municipal Court. * * * The contents of the ticket shall constitute a prima facie evidence of the facts it contains. Liability may be found by the hearing examiner based upon a preponderance of the evidence." Id. After a person had gone through the city's administrative process, the person could appeal the hearing officer's decision to the common pleas court pursuant to R.C. 2506.01.

{¶ 6} One entity similarly situated to appellees followed that procedure to its endpoint. In Dickson & Campbell, 181 Ohio App.3d 238, 2009-Ohio-738,

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908 N.E.2d 964, a law firm received two speeding tickets under the city's automated-traffic-enforcement program and then participated in the administrative-hearing-and-appeal process through its completion in the Eighth District. The firm disputed the hearing officer's conclusion that CCO 413.031 applied to vehicle lessees. Dickson & Campbell at ¶ 1-5, 54-55. The Eighth District held that based on the plain meaning of the phrase "vehicle owner," id. at ¶ 39, CCO 413.031 did not impose liability on vehicle lessees, id. at ¶ 51. After the court of appeals' decision in Dickson & Campbell, the city amended CCO 413.031 to state that "vehicle owner" includes the "lessee" of a leased or rented vehicle, CCO 413.031(p)(4).

B. The class action

{¶ 7} The underlying case is a class action that followed the decision in Dickson & Campbell. Plaintiffs in the class action and appellees here-who were vehicle lessees who received tickets under the city's automated-traffic-enforcement program-did not appeal their cases to the parking-violations bureau; most paid the $100 civil fine upon receiving the ticket.

{¶ 8} For example, in 2006, Lycan, the first named plaintiff in the class-action suit, received from the city a notice of liability stating that an automated-traffic-enforcement camera had photographed her vehicle violating the city's speeding ordinance. She paid the fine, admitting liability under the citation. In 2009, on behalf of herself and other vehicle lessees who had been ticketed under the program, Lycan filed a motion for class certification. As relief, appellees sought the following: (1) disgorgement of the fines paid to the city, under an unjust-enrichment theory, (2) an injunction preventing the city from enforcing the ordinance against vehicle lessees, and (3) declaratory judgment that the city wrongfully possessed appellees' money.

C A brief history of the litigation and the city's defenses

{¶ 9} The amended complaint in this case was filed in 2009. This court has issued one prior decision in the case, Lycan v. Cleveland, 146 Ohio St.3d 29,

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2016-Ohio-422, 51 N.E.3d 593 ("Lycan III "). In that decision, this court set forth the procedural history of the case to that point, which included two prior decisions by the Eighth District: Lycan v. Cleveland, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 94353, 2010-Ohio-6021 ("Lycan I "), overruled in part by Lycan III; and Lycan v. Cleveland, 2014-Ohio-203, 6 N.E.3d 91 (8th Dist.) ("Lycan II "), rev 'd in part by Lycan III. Lycan III at ¶ 7-18. We repeat that history below.

{¶ 10} In Lycan I, the Eighth District reversed the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court's dismissal of appellees' claims for restitution and declaratory relief, reversed the trial court's denial of appellees' class-certification motion, and determined that appellees' failure to challenge their fines before paying them did not necessarily foreclose appellees from proving a set of facts under which it could be deemed unjust for the city to retain the payments. Id. at ¶ 5-11.

{¶ 11} On remand from Lycan I, the city argued in the trial court that the character of its notices of liability, combined with appellees' opportunity to participate in the administrative-appeal process, constituted quasi-judicial administrative proceedings from which the preclusive effect of res judicata arose. But on February 8, 2013, the trial court granted partial summary judgment to appellees. That decision was two sentences long. In the first sentence, the trial court simply granted appellees' motion for partial summary judgment without providing any reasoning. In the second sentence, the trial court set a hearing date for appellees' class-certification motion. The city did not seek an interlocutory appeal of the order.

{¶ 12} On February 19...