Local Court Lacks Jurisdiction to Declare That State Highway Easement Has Been ‘Abandoned’
2008-0574. New 52 Project, Inc. v. Proctor, Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-1766.
Franklin App. No. 07AP-487, 2008-Ohio-465. Judgment reversed, and judgment of the trial court reinstated.
Moyer, C.J., and Lundberg Stratton, O'Connor, O'Donnell, and Cupp, JJ., concur.
Pfeifer and Lanzinger, JJ., dissent.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2009/2009-Ohio-1766.pdf 
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(April 21, 2009) The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that the director of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has exclusive authority to abandon or vacate portions of the state highway system, and therefore a court of common pleas has no jurisdiction to decide whether an easement for a section of state highway has been abandoned.
The Court’s 5-2 majority decision, which reversed a ruling by the 10th District Court of Appeals, was authored by Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton.
In 1959, the state purchased a perpetual highway easement over land owned by Lillian Parsons in the village of Chesapeake, on which it constructed a portion of State Route 52. In 1984 or 1985, the highway was re-routed so that the old roadway became an exit ramp. The ramp was later re-routed so that traffic no longer traversed the easement the state had procured from Parsons.
In 2006, an entity known as New 52 Project, Inc., which had obtained title to the former Parsons property on both sides of the bypassed highway easement, filed an action in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas seeking a declaration that under Ohio common law, ODOT had abandoned its easement on the unused segment of former roadway or that the easement had been extinguished by operation of law. The state filed a motion to dismiss the court action, arguing that a common pleas court had no jurisdiction to consider New 52’s claim because R.C. 5511.01 sets forth a mandatory administrative process that must be conducted by the Director of Transportation before any state highway or segment of a state highway can be legally “abandoned.” The trial court granted the motion to dismiss, holding that it did not have jurisdiction to hear or grant New 52’s claim because R.C. 5511.01 sets forth exclusive procedures for legal abandonment of a state highway, and any action for abandonment must be accomplished through the specified statutory process.
New 52 appealed the trial court’s ruling. On review, the 10th District Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. In its opinion, the 10th District held that the language of R.C. 5511.01 provides one means, but not the exclusive means, by which a highway can be abandoned, and that New 52’s common law abandonment argument set forth a claim sufficient to allow its action against ODOT to go forward. ODOT sought and was granted Supreme Court review of the 10th District’s ruling.
In today’s majority decision, the court reaffirmed that neither adverse possession nor an action to quiet title will lie against the state. Justice Stratton wrote: “(W)e find this court’s decision in Bigler v. York Twp. (1993) ... to be dispositive. In Bigler, we examined the means by which a township could abandon township roads. The relevant statute in that case was R.C. 5553.042, which empowers a board of county commissioners to vacate a township road upon petition by an abutting land owner. We held, ‘[I]f this court were to hold that an action could also be brought in a court of common pleas to quiet title to a township road on the grounds of abandonment, we would directly undermine the discretion which the General Assembly expressly granted to the board of county commissioners in R.C. 5553.042. With this separate means to the same end, the statutory powers conveyed to the county commissioners in R.C. 5553.042 would be rendered meaningless.’”
Applying that same rationale to New 52’s attempt to pursue a common law abandonment claim involving a state highway, Justice Stratton wrote: “(W)e find that R.C. 5511.01 and 5511.07 express the General Assembly’s intent to prohibit common-law claims for abandonment of an easement within a municipal corporation on which a public highway was built. Rather than being a mere dispute between ODOT and a fee owner, we noted in Bigler that the vacation of a road ‘involves the careful weighing of widely diverse interests and public-policy considerations.’ To that end, we note that R.C. 5511.01 and 5511.07 provide other protections that would not exist in a common-law action for abandonment of an easement. For example, both statutes provide for notice to the public or to the owners of abutting property about the prospective abandonment or vacation of the highway, and they allow public involvement, which a private lawsuit does not allow. Further, R.C. 5511.01 provides for notice to other authorities, such as local governments and planning commissions, and any affected utilities and railroads. ... Finally, if the director decides to vacate a state highway, R.C. 5511.07 allows claims for resulting damages. R.C. 5511.07 provides that a final determination for vacating the highway cannot occur until all damage awards have been accepted or deposited in court, thereby giving the director the discretion to refuse to vacate the highway, portion of highway, or highway easement, if damage claims would be too large.”
“Permitting a common-law action to declare the easement abandoned would defeat much of the intent of the statutory scheme set up in R.C. Chapter 5511,” Justice Stratton concluded. “We find that the detailed procedures for abandoning or vacating a public highway signal the General Assembly’s intent to make the statutory process an exclusive one. ... R.C. Chapter 5511 gives the director of transportation the exclusive authority to abandon or vacate portions of the state highway system. Therefore, a court of common pleas has no jurisdiction to decide whether an easement for a state highway has been abandoned. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial court dismissing the complaint.”
Justice Stratton’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Maureen O’Connor, Terrence O’Donnell and Robert R. Cupp. Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Judith Ann Lanzinger entered separate dissenting opinions.
Justice Lanzinger wrote that she would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals allowing New 52 to proceed with its common law abandonment claim based on language adopted by the legislature in R.C. 5303.01 that permits a person who is in possession of real property to bring a court action against “any person” who claims to have an adverse interest in that property; and specifically includes an authorization to make “the state or any agency or political subdivision thereof” a party to such an action if the state asserts an adverse interest in the disputed property.
She also disputed the majority’s reliance on Bigler. “Bigler involved an entirely different statute, R.C. 5553.042(B), which provides a specific procedure for an abutting landowner of a township road to petition for vacation of ‘a public road, highway, street, or alley,’” wrote Justice Lanzinger. “This court held that R.C. 5553.042 established an exclusive mechanism for vacating township roads and therefore the court of common pleas had no jurisdiction over a common law action to quiet title to a township road. ... However, neither R.C. 5511.01 nor 5511.07, which are at issue here, offers a similar petition process to fee owners who have public highway easements on their property. ... (I)f the General Assembly truly intended to give exclusive authority to the director of transportation to abandon or vacate state highway easements, it would have eliminated the second paragraph of R.C. 5303.01, which specifically allows property owners to challenge the state’s interest in their realty.”Justice Pfeifer concurred with Justice Lanzinger’s analysis that R.C. 5303.01 authorizes actions to be brought in common pleas court to “quiet” (extinguish) an ownership interest or easement asserted by the state over real property. He wrote separately to challenge a statement in the majority opinion that Federal Highway Administration regulations “require state transportation departments, if they wish to dispose of any interest in real property that was acquired with federal funds, to offer the property to other government agencies for use as parks, in conservation, or for other recreational purposes if the property has the potential for such use.”
“Those rules, if applied here, would constitute an unconstitutional taking,” wrote Justice Pfeifer. “The state’s property interest here is an easement for highway use; to transfer the interest for use as a park would be transferring an interest greater than the state held.”
Contacts
Benjamin C. Mizer, 614.466.8980, for the Ohio Department of Transportation.
David R. Dillon, 740.533.2720, for New 52 Project Inc.