Property

A new bill in the Ohio Senate addresses several legal issues for Ohio agritourism operators.  Senators Jones (R-Springboro) and Peterson (R-Sabina) introduced S.B. 334 on May 7.  The bill would impact Ohio agritourism operators in regards to civil liability, property taxation, zoning regulation and amusement ride standards.

Civil Liability Protection

Following a similar trend in other states, the Ohio legislation would grant agritourism operators civil liability protection from claims for injuries that occur during agritourism activities.   An operator would not be liable for harm that an observer or participant sustains during an agritourism activity if the harm is a result of the following conditions, which the law defines as "risks inherent in an agritourism activity":

(a) The surface and subsurface conditions of land;

(b) The behavior of wild or domestic animals;

(c) The ordinary dangers associated with structures or equipment ordinarily used in farming or ranching operations;

(d) The possibility of contracting illness resulting from physical contact with animals, animal feed, animal waste, or surfaces contaminated by animal waste;

(e) The possibility that a participant may act in a negligent manner, including by failing to follow instructions given by the agritourism provider or by failing to exercise reasonable caution while engaging in the agritourism activity that may contribute to injury to that participant or another participant.

The law does not extend civil liability immunity if an agritourism operator purposefully causes harm or if the provider's willful or wanton disregard for the safety of an observer or participant proximately causes harm to the person.

Author: Peggy Kirk Hall, Asst. Professor, Agricultural & Resource Law

Peggy Hall, Asst. Professor, OSU Extension Agricultural & Resource Law Program

We often explain the Ohio Recreational User's Statute to farmland owners because the  law provides liability protection when someone asks to hunt, fish, snowmobile or conduct other recreational activities on the farm.  As long as the landowner grants permission for the use and does not receive a fee from the recreational user, the landowner does not owe a legal duty to assure that the premises are safe for the user.  This immunity from liability encourages those who own non-residential land to open the land for recreational activities.

Landowners always have "what if" type questions when we explain this law.  Recently, the Ohio Supreme Court answered one of those "what if" questions:  what if I modify the property in some way and create a hazardous condition that causes an injury; does the Recreational User's Statute still protect me from liability?  The Supreme Court's response:  yes.  But the court was not in complete agreement on the issue.

The accident at the heart of the case occurred when an 18 year old boy went sledding in a park owned by the City of Circleville, Ohio.  The boy slid head first into a wooden railroad tie which the city had transported to the park from a construction site.  The city planned to temporarily store the railroad tie and other construction debris at the park because no storage space was available at its maintenance facility.  Upon hitting the railroad tie, the boy broke his neck and became paraplegic.

In its decision in the lawsuit filed by the boy, the trial court determined that the city was immune from liability because of the Recreational User's Statute, which grants recreational immunity to governmental as well as private landowners.  The boy appealed the case to the Fourth District Court of Appeals, which affirmed the trial court's decision.  The Ohio Supreme Court agreed to review the case.

The question before the court was whether the city's action of placing the railroad ties in the park created an exception from the immunity provided by the Recreational User's Statute.  The boy's legal counsel argued that storage of the railroad ties and other construction debris in the park had changed the property's essential character so that it was no longer a recreational property and should not fall under the protection of the Recreational User's Statute.   A majority of the court disagreed, concluding that the city’s alleged creation of a hazard on the premises did not affect the city’s immunity.

"We cannot accept as reasonable any contention that the presence of a railroad tie in a public park changes its essential character as a recreational space,” wrote Justice Sharon Kennedy.  “Critics may claim that our decision reaches a harsh result.  However, the language of the recreational-user statute is plain; a property owner owes no duty to a recreational user to keep the property safe for entry or use.  Creating an exception to this immunity is a policy decision that comes within the purview of the General Assembly, not the courts. … [W]e will not create an exception by judicial fiat.”

Justice William O’Neill entered a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Paul Pfeifer, who also wrote a separate dissent.   “[L]et’s be accurate here — we are not talking about a single railroad tie," stated Justice O'Neill.  "That tie that crippled this child was part of an overall scheme of disposal of huge mounds of debris that the city had incredibly decided to place in the middle of a recreational park! Cover it with a light dressing of snow, and the perfect killing field was created. . . . [T]he city made a decision to dump huge mounds of debris into a city-owned park. When it did that, it lost its “recreational user” immunity entirely."

In his dissent, Justice Pfeifer questioned the protection afforded by the Recreational User's Statute.  The immunity provisions in those statutes, he stated, "provide unreasonable and unconstitutional protection to government entities that own property."

What does the Court's decision mean for agricultural landowners? 

While the case did not involve an agricultural property, the decision does have impact for agricultural landowners.  A few lessons from the case:

Affirmation of broad landowner immunity.  The court's decision affirms the broad immunity afforded by Ohio's Recreational User's Statute.  We often hear questions such as "but what if I left my equipment out in the field?" or "but what if they fall into that hole I just dug?"   Based on the court's decision, the landowner has no duty to make the property safe and won't be liable for injuries caused by any "hazards" the landowner created on the property.   Remember that this immunity applies to "recreational users"-- property visitors who have the landowner's permission to engage in recreational activities such as hunting, fishing and snowmobiling on non-residential property and who haven't paid the landowner for the recreational activity (with an exception for hunting lease payments; landowners may receive hunting lease payments and still retain recreational user immunity).

Take recreational permission seriously.   This lawsuit arose because someone suffered a serious injury.  Even with immunity protection, landowners should think twice about allowing recreational users on the property when highly dangerous situations are present.  If there's a good chance that someone could suffer harm from the situation, avoid the potential of harm and simply don't grant permission for people to be on the property.

Immunity comes at a cost.    While it can prevent landowner liability, the Recreational User's Statute can't stop a harmed party from taking the landowner to court.    The city incurred not only the costs of defending itself through three court hearings, involving attorney fees and the city's time, but also the cost of negative publicity.  Surely, more responsible land management decisions would have cost less and kept someone from suffering harm.

The Ohio Supreme Court's decision in Pauley v. Circleville is available here.  The Ohio Recreational User's Statute is in Ohio Revised Code Sections 1533.18 and 1533.181.

Peggy Kirk Hall, Asst. Professor, OSUE Agricultural & Resource Law Program     

A recent decision by the Ohio Court of Appeals addressed two important legal standards: the proof necessary to claim title to another's land by adverse possession and conditions allowing a trial court to set aside a jury's verdict.

The case, Kiesel v. Hovis, centers on a land dispute between two adjacent farms in Sandusky County, Ohio.   A recent land survey established a new legal description and a boundary line between the farms; the survey placed the boundary line 126 feet east of a ditch that the Kiesels had previously considered the boundary.   Since the new boundary reduced their parcel by seven acres, the Kiesels filed a lawsuit, claiming title to the seven acres of land by adverse possession.

Adverse possession is an old law; its historical purpose was to encourage settlement of the frontier by rewarding "squatters" who put land into productive use.  Today, adverse possession is a controversial law used to try to resolve misunderstandings about boundaries established long ago.  A party claiming land by adverse possession must prove that he or his predecessors had exclusive, continuous possession of the disputed land for at least 21 years and that the possession was open, notorious and adverse to the legal title holder.   If the party proves each element of adverse possession, the court will order a new deed that changes title to the property.

Offering Evidence to Prove Adverse Possession

Landowners often ask what type of evidence will prove the elements of adverse possession.  In this case, the Kiesels offered proof through the testimony of several witnesses.   Two farmers testified that they had farmed the disputed land for the Kiesels' predecessor from 1975 to 1993, although one farmer stated that he didn't believe all of the land had belonged to the predecessor.   The Kiesels also testified, stating that they had owned the land since 1993, had farmed up to the ditch for ten years,  had placed the land into the Conservation Enhancement Reserve program in 2003 and still received annual payments from the government for the land.

Hovis, the neighboring landowner and defendant in the case, offered witnesses to dispute the Kiesels' claims.  The surveyor for Hovis testified that the new boundary line was consistent with old legal descriptions for other parcels and with old tax maps.  The surveyor also stated that early maps did not show the ditch; a ditch did not appear on any government map until 1959.  Hovis called a witness from the county auditor's office, who testified that the new survey line was consistent with old tax maps and that the auditor's office had  ordered the new survey because the old legal description was ambiguous.  Hovis also testified that his father had owned the land since 1966, that he and his father had paid taxes for the disputed strip since that time, and that his father and the owner previous to Kiesels were friends but that he didn't know whether they had an agreement about the use of the land in question.  In reference to whether he had given the Kiesels permission to use the land, Hovis testified that he had never said anything but had consented to the use by his inaction, as it was difficult to get his equipment across the ditch to access the land.

Who Gets the Land?

As is often the situation in adverse possession cases, the jury sided with the legal title holder.  A unanimous verdict by the jury rejected the Kiesels' claim of adverse possession and ruled in favor of Hovis.

A Court's Power to Set Aside a Jury Verdict

After the jury verdict, the Kiesels asked  the court for a “judgment notwithstanding the verdict.”  This motion argues that the court should set aside a jury verdict because reasonable minds could have come to only one conclusion based on the evidence submitted, and that conclusion was opposite the jury’s decision.   The trial court agreed and granted the Kiesels' motion to replace the jury’s verdict, commenting that the jury had “lost its way.”   Hovis immediately appealed the court’s decision to the court of appeals, arguing that sufficient evidence existed to refute the claim of adverse possession, the trial court had used the wrong standard for determining whether to set aside the jury's decision, and  the trial court had invaded the “province of the jury.”

The Review by the Court of Appeals

The Sixth District Court of Appeals reinstated the jury’s verdict.  The trial court’s conclusion that the jury had “lost its way” was "patently the wrong standard to use," the court of appeals stated.  Instead, the trial court should have determined whether reasonable minds could have disagreed on the decision.  Examining all of the witness testimony, the appeals court concluded that the testimony was not conclusive either way;  reasonable minds could have examined the evidence and reached different conclusions about whether the Kiesels had proven adverse possession.  For this reason, the trial court erred by setting aside the jury's verdict.

Lessons Learned

The case reminds us once again of the difficulty of proving adverse possession.  Imagine the jury's challenge:  whether to take land from one landowner and give it to another.   The difficulty of this task is likely one reason that adverse possession claims are hard to win; another could be that "permission" for the use by the title owner is a defense to the claim that the use was "adverse" or against the wishes of the owner.   While the Kiesels and predecessors had clearly used the land in dispute for more than 21 years, they weren't able to convince the jury that their use was adverse.  Hovis, on the other hand, apparently established enough evidence to suggest that both he and his predecessor had allowed the use of the land since it was on the other side of the ditch and not easily accessible, thereby giving permission for the use.  The law of adverse possession does not allow a party to claim the land of one who has given permission or "acquiesced" in the use of his or her land by another, even if the other party mistakenly believes he or she owns the land.

This case also reminds us about the role of juries and judges in our legal system.  While a trial court judge can disagree with a jury, the judge does not have automatic authority to deprive the jury of its decision.  Only if there's no uncertainty about the interpretation of evidence--no room for reasonable minds to disagree about what the evidence proves--can a court step in and replace a jury's verdict.   This is an important principle of our legal process, intended to balance power between the people and the courts.

Time will tell whether the Kiesels invoke another significant component of our legal process--the right to request a review of the appellate court's decision by the Ohio Supreme Court. The appellate court's decision in Kiesel v. Hovis is here.