Key Points

  • The Ohio Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Ninth District Court of Appeals in Hilton v. Lorain, 2026-Ohio-4114.
  • The court held that a trial court conducts the rigorous analysis required by Civ.R. 23 when it analyzes each of the seven class-certification requirements, even after finding that one or more are not met.
  • A trial court need not expressly state that it is assuming the unmet requirements arguendo when it analyzes the remaining ones.
  • The court relied on judicial economy and its 1998 Hamilton recommendation that trial courts make separate written findings on each requirement, while noting that in some cases one failed requirement may impede analysis of the others.
  • The court declined to reach the city's second proposition of law and remanded the case to the Ninth District to address the plaintiffs' remaining assignments of error.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a trial judge who finds that a proposed class action fails one requirement for certification may still decide whether the case meets the others, reversing an appeals court that had set aside a Lorain County judge's denial of class status in a lawsuit over the city of Lorain's water and sewer charges.

The vote was 7-0. Justice Fischer wrote the opinion for the court, joined by Chief Justice Kennedy and Justices DeWine, Brunner, Deters, Hawkins and Shanahan. The decision favors the city, which had argued that the trial judge handled the certification motion correctly, and it sends the case back to the Ninth District Court of Appeals to take up the plaintiffs' remaining arguments.

Ohio's Civil Rule 23 permits class certification only when seven requirements are met. The Ninth District had found it contradictory for the trial court to rule that the proposed class was not clearly defined while also finding the class numerous, its claims typical and its representatives adequate. The Supreme Court held that a trial court that works through all seven requirements, even after finding some unmet, has performed the "rigorous analysis" Ohio law demands, and that the court need not announce it is assuming the failed requirements for argument's sake.

"Merely omitting such a statement does not negate an otherwise rigorous analysis," Justice Fischer wrote. The opinion acknowledged that the trial court's decision "would have been clearer if it had stated that it was considering each of the requirements for class certification by assuming arguendo that the other requirements were satisfied," but held that the trial court "was not required to."

Tia Hilton, Paul Flores Jr. and Anna M. Cruz sued the city and related entities, alleging that Lorain charged unlawful rates and fees for water and wastewater services. They sought to represent "All ratepayers who were charged water and sanitary sewer rates, fees and charges by the City of Lorain since May 7, 2012." The amended complaint named other defendants, but the plaintiffs sought class treatment only for their claims against the city of Lorain.

In a 28-page decision, the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas found two of the seven requirements unmet. The court ruled that the class was not identifiable or unambiguously defined, because it was unclear whether the class covered everyone charged a fee or only those who actually paid one. The plaintiffs' theories, the trial court concluded, "would require unreasonable, if not impossible, efforts to identify the class members."

The trial court also found that the plaintiffs failed the requirement known as predominance and superiority. That test, under Civ.R. 23(B)(3), asks whether common questions outweigh individual ones and whether a class action is superior to other ways of resolving the dispute. Even if class members could be identified, the court reasoned, it would still have to determine for each member whether that person had paid illegal charges and how much. The court found the other five requirements satisfied and denied certification.

The Ninth District called that decision "confusing and seemingly contradictory." The appeals court said it could not understand how the trial court could find, for example, that the plaintiffs were members of the class and that the class was sufficiently numerous if the class itself was not identifiable. It held that "the trial court abused its discretion in denying the motion for class certification in light of the totality of its analysis and the presence of seemingly contradictory findings" and ordered the trial court to redo its analysis. Abuse of discretion is the deferential standard Ohio appellate courts apply to certification rulings.

Before the Supreme Court, the city argued that the trial judge had assumed for argument's sake that the class was properly defined in order to evaluate the remaining requirements. The city warned that a trial court that stopped at the first failed requirement could be reversed and then forced to decide the other six requirements one at a time on remand, a process that "could result in six appeals and six remands." The city also contended that leaving the Ninth District's ruling in place would encourage trial courts to perform a less rigorous analysis.

The plaintiffs responded that an analysis that is confusing and contradictory is not rigorous. They also argued that the trial court gave no meaningful explanation for the contradictory nature of its findings.

Justice Fischer pointed to passages showing that the trial judge had in fact reasoned conditionally. In its predominance analysis, the trial court wrote, "Although this Court finds that the Plaintiffs haven't met the requirements for an identifiable and unambiguous class, even if Plaintiffs had, they can't meet the requirements of Civ.R. 23(B)(3)."

The opinion relied on Hamilton v. Ohio Savings Bank, a 1998 decision in which the Supreme Court suggested that "trial courts make separate written findings as to each of the seven class action requirements, and specify their reasoning as to each finding." As the city pointed out, Justice Fischer wrote, principles of judicial economy "support a trial court's analyzing a motion for class certification by considering whether each of the seven requirements for certification have been met, whenever possible."

The justices left room for exceptions. "There will perhaps be cases in which the failure to meet one requirement impedes the court's analysis of whether the other six requirements have been met," Justice Fischer wrote. "But this is not that case."

Because the city's first proposition of law decided the appeal, the court declined to address the second. That proposition contended that appeals are taken from judgments rather than from the opinions explaining them, so that confusing or even erroneous reasoning alone does not justify reversal.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs included Anthony J. Coyne of Mansour Gavin, L.P.A. The city was represented by Richard D. Panza of Wickens Herzer Panza.

The case, Hilton v. Lorain, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-4114, now returns to the Ninth District, which must decide the other assignments of error the plaintiffs raised in their appeal.