In a narrowly split decision, the Supreme Court of Ohio has specified tighter constraints on attorney fees in Deceptive Trade Practices Act cases, determining that a verdict in a plaintiff's favor isn't enough to secure such fees without actual damages or injunctive relief awarded. This ruling comes in a case involving two Cincinnati property owners and a contractor they accused of deceitful conduct.
The property owners initially found solace in a jury's finding that the contractor was engaged in deceptive practices. Yet, their hearts sank as the jury allotted $0 in damages for that claim, only granting them $30,604 on a separate breach-of-contract count. The implications of this outcome were magnified by the high court's recent stance, as penned by Justice R. Patrick DeWine, who suggested actual relief is necessary to alter the legal relationship between the parties involved—a condition required to be deemed the "prevailing party." according to the Court News Ohio official statement.
While the majority upheld this threshold for prevailing party status, Justice Jennifer Brunner stood opposed in her dissent, noting, as per Court News Ohio, "the context of the law does not indicate that the winning party must receive damages or an injunction," and argued that since the property owners vehemently emerged victorious in their financial claim, they should be recognized as the prevailing party—a notion reflecting the sentiments of several federal courts in similar circumstances.
The ruling, which reversed an earlier decision by the First District Court of Appeals, incited a robust dissent. The court's decision reflects the interpretive schism between a literalist reading of legislation and a more holistic view, with the former prevailing in this instance aligning Justices Sharon L. Kennedy, Patrick F. Fischer, and Joseph T. Deters with DeWine's opinion, while Justices Michael P. Donnelly and Melody Stewart supported Brunner's perspective, as detailed in Goomai v. H&E Ent., LLC, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-5711.
