A Lorain County trial court did not make an error by considering all the requirements for class certification when it rejected a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging the city of Lorain was charging unlawful rates and fees for water and sewer services, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed a Ninth District Court of Appeals decision, which had found a Lorain County Common Pleas Court trial judge had not conducted the “rigorous analysis” required under Ohio court rules when determining whether a lawsuit can proceed as a class-action.

Writing for the Court, Justice Patrick F. Fischer stated that the trial court’s 28-page decision found the plaintiffs seeking refunds for water overcharges met only five of the seven requirements, which meant it could not be certified as a class-action. The Ninth District found the trial court’s analysis confusing, but wrongly concluded that the trial court’s analysis was not rigorous, he stated.

“We hold that the trial court conducted a rigorous analysis as required by thoroughly considering each of the seven requirements for class certification,” Justice Fischer wrote.

Group Seeks Water Bill Refunds
In 2020, Tia Hilton, Paul Flores Jr., and Anna M. Cruz sued the city of Lorain and other entities, claiming the rates for water and wastewater services were excessive and unlawful. The three asked the common pleas court for class certification. They proposed the class be defined as: “All ratepayers who were charged water and sanitary sewer rates, fees and charges by the City of Lorain since May 7, 2012.”

Under Rule 23 of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure, plaintiffs must meet seven requirements to be certified as a class. The first requirement is that “an identifiable class must exist and the definition of the class must be unambiguous.” Other requirements include that there must be questions of law or facts common to all the members of the class, and the claims of those bringing the lawsuit must be representative of the claims made by everyone else in the class.

The last of the seven requirements is to meet one of three options under Rule 23(B). One option is to show that an issue common to class members “predominates” over other issues affecting individual members and that a class-action lawsuit is superior to other available methods of resolving the issue. This is referred to as the “predominance and superiority” requirement.

Judge Analyzed Ratepayer Request
The trial judge ruled the first requirement was not met because there was no identifiable and unambiguous class. The trial court’s written opinion stated that it was not clear what “ratepayers” meant and whether the class included those who were charged fees or only those who actually paid fees. The court maintained that the plaintiffs also failed to explain how they would identify who would be considered ratepayers who overpaid for services provided over a decade earlier.

The trial judge also ruled that the class did not meet the predominance and superiority requirement because, even if the class members could be identified, the lawsuit would need to determine for each member whether they paid an illegal charge and, if so, how much.

Despite finding that Hilton and the others failed to meet two requirements, the trial court held that the other five requirements were met.

Hilton appealed the decision to the Ninth District. The appeals court deemed the trial court’s decision to be “confusing and seemingly contradictory.” The Ninth District stated it could not understand how the trial court could make the finding that the class met five requirements without meeting the first requirement of being an identifiable and unambiguous class.

The Ninth District ruled that the trial court did not conduct the required rigorous analysis. The city appealed the Ninth District’s decision to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Analyzed Class-Action Review
The city argued the Ninth District wrongly faulted the trial court for reviewing all seven requirements after finding the first requirement was not met.

Justice Fischer cited the Court’s 2013 Cullen v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. decision, which stated that a rigorous analysis “requires the court to resolve factual disputes relative to each requirement,” and to determine if each requirement is met.  The Court has recommended that, to aid in the review of a trial court’s ruling on class certification, trial courts make separate written findings on each of the seven requirements and specify their reasoning for each.

The city argued that the Ninth District failed to recognize that the trial court’s analysis was not contradictory, arguing that after finding the first requirement had not been met, the judge attempted to address the other requirements by assuming, for the sake of argument, that there was an identifiable class.

The Court agreed, stating that the trial court could have been clearer if it had written that it was considering each requirement “by assuming arguendo that the other requirements were satisfied.” However, the trial court was not required to do so, the opinion stated.

The opinion also noted that the trial court’s decision contained language indicating it was making findings as if the first requirement had been met. The Court pointed out that when the trial court was considering whether the class met the requirement that Hilton and the named representatives were members of the class, the trial court opinion stated that “it would appear at least on the surface” that they were members “[i]f” by the term “ratepayers” they meant “individuals paying water and wastewater rates.”

Throughout the analysis of whether they met the last requirement of predominance and superiority, the trial court repeatedly stated that it was basing its finding on the assumption that the class was identifiable and unambiguous.

The trial court could have stopped its analysis after its first finding, but analyzed the remaining requirements out of “judicial economy,” the opinion stated. Had a higher court overruled its position on the first requirement, the trial court would have had to go back and analyze the other requirements anyway, the Court noted.

“In this case, despite finding that the first and last requirements for class certification had not been met, the trial court conducted a rigorous analysis by analyzing whether each of the other five requirements had been met. It did not err by doing so,” the Court concluded.

The Court remanded the case to the Ninth District to consider Hilton’s other legal challenges to the trial court’s decision.

2025-1334. Hilton v. Lorain, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-4114.

View oral argument video of this case.

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