Property owners to share $6.1M in dispute over shoreline

State settles class action lawsuit

Shoreline property owners will get a share of $6.1 million the state of Ohio paid to settle the legal dispute over who owns what land along the Lake Erie coast.

On May 24, the Ohio Lakefront Group announced the settlement of the class action lawsuit that lakefront property owners filed against the state of Ohio. Depending on property owners’ claims and duration of ownership, the owners could get checks for $1,788.

The settlement ends 13 years of litigation between the grassroots Ohio Lakefront Group of landowners and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said OLG President Tony Yankel.

The legal fight began when ODNR claimed ownership of all of the Lake Erie shoreline and that deeds showing private property ownership were invalid, Yankel said.

In 2011, the Ohio Supreme Court, in a 7-0 decision, ruled that the private deeds along the shoreline were valid and that ODNR had no valid ownership claim, according to Ohio Lakefront Group.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision on ownership of the property, the case moved to the penalty phase, in which the state agreed to a settle with OLG.

The Ohio Lakefront Group announced the damage award is broken down into the following categories:

• $2.33 million for compensation claims

• $1.12 million for lease repayments

• $600,000 attorney fees for the court litigation, known as Phase I of the case

• $1.25 million for attorney fees for the penalty determination, known as Phase II of the case

• $200,000 to a third party administrator

• $600,000 for unclaimed lease repayments to charitable organizations

The most recent round of checks issued dealt with the direct compensation to lakefront property owners.

If a valid claim was filed and that the property was owned during the entire time of May 1998 through September 2011, the property owner was issued a check for $1,788.19.

Checks have been issued to all parties except to the charitable organizations, Yankel said.

Ohio Lakefront Group will hold its annual meeting at 7 p.m. May 25 at the Emerald Event Center, 33040 Just Imagine Drive, Avon.

Yankel said he will discuss the settlement in detail, along with “continued attempts by ODNR to ignore deeded property boundaries and actions OLG will take to stop it.”