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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2009 > October > 01 > Entry
Supreme Court upholds $250,000 damage cap for cities
The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday, Oct. 1, ruled that a state law placing a $250,000 cap on the amount of non-economic damages an injured party may recover from a city or other political subdivision is constitutional.
The court’s 5-2 decision stemmed from a June 11, 2002, incident during a Cleveland Indians’ game at what was then Jacobs Field. The decision reversed an appeals court ruling.
The opinion upheld part of Ohio’s “sovereign immunity” law adopted as part of tort reform legislation. The provision says that except in wrongful death cases, the injured party can’t recover more than $250,000 in non-economic damages from a city even if a jury awards damages greater than that.
“A limit on the damages for which a political subdivision may be liable is rationally related to the purpose of preserving the financial integrity of political subdivisions,” Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer wrote in the majority opinion.
Justice Paul E. Pfeifer’s dissenting opinion said that “Instead of jealously safeguarding the right to trial by jury, the majority in this case eviscerates it….”
In the case, Donald Krieger and Clifton Oliver of Cleveland were part of a group of people at an Indians’ game when an explosive device was dropped from the upper deck and was detonated at ground level, injuring four people.
Krieger and Oliver were arrested and held in jail for four days but charges of aggravated arson and felonious assault were dismissed.
They sued the city for malicious prosecution and related charges and a jury awarded each of them $400,000 in compensatory damages and $600,000 in punitive damages.
The trial court vacated the punitive damages and overruled the city’s motion to reduce compensatory damages to $250,000.
The city appealed but the 8th District Court of Appeals upheld the $400,000 awards to each man.
The Supreme Court decision reversed the appeals court ruling.
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Comments
By PLAIN TRUTH
October 3, 2009 8:56 PM | Link to this
It is time to vote for new supreme court justices to replace the five supreme court INUSTICES. They would themselves seek much more that was originally awarded to the two injured parties should this had been them!!By null
October 1, 2009 2:11 PM | Link to this
Im sure the officer only stopped u for your sticker. What was the was the “false” charge?By Gregory Yoder
October 1, 2009 2:03 PM | Link to this
I just got stopped for driving with an Obama sticker on my car. The officer looked me in the eye and smirked as he lied in court. The only way to push the cities to deal with officers who choose to lie about citizens they don’t like is penalize them financially.By T. Lewis
October 1, 2009 1:20 PM | Link to this
Mr. Hershey, I suggest that you read the facts of the underlying case, Such as the city refused to dismiss the case notwithstanding overwelming evidence that these defendants were not guilty(One was standing next to a security guard and on a different level and the other defendant was on the stadumn’s video tape also on a different level at the time the fire cracker, went off). They were only arrested because they became involved in a verbal altercation with an off duty officer as they left the stadum. As I recall, because the city refused to dismiss the case until the last minute, one gentleman lost his job and the other was dishonorably discharged from the service because he could not report for duty.By To Philman
October 1, 2009 11:05 AM | Link to this
Uh, Philman, something is really wrong with your statement or you are joking and I missed it. Conservatives are the tort reform PROponents. Liberals are the tort reform OPponents. You can still be a liberal hater, but if you hate tort reform, you are hating the wrong group.By lawabider
October 1, 2009 10:38 AM | Link to this
Then, the juries should be able to mandate that any government employee involved can be fired. There needs to be a deterrent to bad behavior by public employees.By Philman
October 1, 2009 10:38 AM | Link to this
Just like liberals they want Tort reform for their own protection, but not for the EVIL corporations.and REALLY EVIL Insurance co.