State attorneys defend Ohio’s plan to fund Browns stadium, urge court to dismiss challenge
Attorneys representing several Ohio officials including Republican state Treasurer Robert Sprague want a judge to dismiss the class action lawsuit challenging the use of unclaimed funds to pay for a new Cleveland Browns stadium.
In a pair of filings, they reject the lawsuit as a “misguided challenge” and the plaintiffs’ objections as “conspiratorial ramblings.”
Far from coming up with some novel workaround to take ordinary Ohioans’ money, “the law is both mundane and entirely within the state’s prerogative,” the state’s attorneys argue. “The state’s right to manage, dispose of, and take title to abandoned property has been established for hundreds of years.”
If the plaintiffs are so worried about the state taking their property, one filing repeatedly asks, why don’t they just claim it?
The state’s lawyers have filed a motion to break up the class of plaintiffs and another to dismiss the case outright.
Background
The case centers on the most recent state budget. The Cleveland Browns were seeking $600 million in state dollars to help to pay for a new $2.5 billion stadium in Brook Park. Republican lawmakers came up with a clever plan to pay for it without raising taxes.
They could just take the money from ordinary Ohioans.
The state manages a pool of nearly $5 billion in unclaimed funds. That money is made up of forgotten assets — things like old bank accounts, security deposits or insurance policies. It’s a big chunk of what state Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, has called “lazy money.” It’s just sitting in an account generating interest, but little else. He argued, why not put some of it to use?
The Ohio Senate’s budget plan moves money that has gone unclaimed for more than 10 years to a new cultural and sports facilities fund. Rightful owners would have 10 more years to come forward, but after that, they’d lose any claim over their money. The Ohio House didn’t object, and when the budget landed on Gov. DeWine’s desk, he didn’t either.
Two attorneys and former Democratic lawmakers, Jeff Crossman and Marc Dann, filed a class action lawsuit claiming the state’s plan amounts to stealing. Looking to eminent domain law, they said the state has to jump through several hoops before taking possession of a citizen’s property, but Ohio officials had done none of that.
In the most recent filings, attorneys representing Ohio’s treasurer, the Department of Commerce director, the Division of Unclaimed Funds superintendent, and the executive director of the state facilities construction commission, pushed back.
“The complaint is nothing more than an expression of plaintiffs’ belief that the law makes for bad public policy,” the state’s attorneys said. “Plaintiffs, however, are not entitled to use this lawsuit to substitute their judgment for that of the state’s duly elected representatives.”
Standing & class status
To bring a lawsuit, a plaintiff needs to demonstrate ‘standing’ — that they’ve been harmed, the defendant caused that harm and the court could fix it. In its filings, the state poked holes in class action’s claims of standing. With a website available for people to reclaim property, what harm has occurred? Anyone who believes the state of Ohio has custody of their property can file a claim, right now, to get their property back.
“Plaintiffs here simply ignored (and continue to ignore) the available administrative procedure entirely,” the state’s attorneys write. “By deciding not to file claims under that process, they plan to cause their own injury and lack standing to claim that defendants are at fault.”
What’s more, they questioned whether any injury exists at all, much less the “actual, imminent and concrete injury” plaintiffs need to demonstrate standing. Although state lawmakers set a deadline for claims, that cutoff isn’t until 2036.
“Thus, no matter what, plaintiffs have had, and will have, more than ten years until they could theoretically experience a loss of their property,” the state contends. “That is hardly ‘imminent.’”
The state’s lawyers argue the case is “far too speculative, remote, and abstract” to meet the requirements. Because no property becomes truly unrecoverable until 2036, no actual harm occurs until then either. By extension, the case won’t be “ripe” until then for court review. Because the plaintiffs haven’t taken advantage of the readily available administrative process for reclaiming their property, it’s not necessary for the court to intervene.
In a separate filing, the state’s legal team argued there’s little that binds the supposed class together. People with property in Ohio’s unclaimed funds trust might prompt similar questions, but the state’s attorneys contend the point of a class action is to deliver a singular answer for the entire group.
The state’s attorneys explain the federal government preempts disputes over money from FDIC-protected accounts. And because the state will only take over funds that have been in the trust for ten or more years, not every claimant would fit in the class.
“Given the vast differences within the proposed class,” they insist, “these questions will require individualized answers, which will depend on multiple factors that would require a claimant-by-claimant analysis.”
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