Singer v. City of Fairborn

598 N.E.2d 806, 73 Ohio App. 3d 809, 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 3333
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 9, 1991
DocketNos. 90 CA 27, 90 CA 42.
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 598 N.E.2d 806 (Singer v. City of Fairborn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Singer v. City of Fairborn, 598 N.E.2d 806, 73 Ohio App. 3d 809, 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 3333 (Ohio Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

Fain, Presiding Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Harold H. Singer appeals from the trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of defendant-appellee city of Fairborn. Singer contends that the trial court erred in granting Fairborn’s motion for summary judgment. With respect to the individual defendants Kuchenbecker and Kotecha, we agree with Singer that summary judgment was improvidently granted. With respect to defendant-appellee Fairborn, we conclude that summary judgment was properly granted. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and this cause is remanded for further proceedings against Kuchenbecker and Kotecha.

I

Singer sold an option to purchase an 18.5-acre parcel of property to Rameo Realty for the development of a K-Mart shopping center in the early 1970s. An option was granted to Shell Oil Company for 1.5 acres, the corner lot of the 20-acre parcel. The options to purchase were contingent upon obtaining the necessary zoning for the intended developments. Due to opposition to the development of a gas station on the corner parcel, Shell Oil cancelled its option *812 to purchase the corner parcel. A new request was submitted to Fairborn to rezone the twenty acres as a planned commercial development. As a result, Rameo Realty purchased the option for the 1.5-acre corner lot.

The property was rezoned as a planned commercial development with a little over two of the twenty acres dedicated for street improvements. The corner lot was designated as green space. The master development plan and final plat plan were approved by Fairborn City Council, signed by Harold H. Singer and Sol S. Kling, owners of the twenty-acre parcel, and filed in 1974. The plat was designated as the Five Points Planned Unit Development.

Rameo Realty exercised the option to purchase the 18.5-acre parcel and cancelled the option to purchase the 1.5-acre lot. Singer was approached in 1988 by individuals interested in developing a mini-mall on the corner lot. A request to amend the Planned Unit Development (“PUD”) to permit construction on the corner lot was filed. The proposal was called “Plaza at the Pointe.” The Fairborn Planning Staff recommended approval of the development. The Fairborn Planning Board rejected the Plaza at the Pointe proposal. Singer appealed the denial to the Fairborn City Council, which upheld the planning board’s decision.

Singer filed suit in the Greene County Common Pleas Court, appealing the denial of the proposed amendment of the Five Points PUD. Fairborn moved to dismiss Singer’s complaint. The trial court converted the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. Singer filed a memorandum in opposition to the motion. Singer then filed an amended complaint alleging an additional claim that two individual planning board members had fraudulently misrepresented certain facts to the planning board and city council. Fairborn answered the amended complaint and counterclaimed, to which Singer replied. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of all defendants. From the judgment of the trial court, Singer appeals.

The trial court has since filed a nunc pro tunc judgment entry amending its original judgment entry of January 16, 1990, and dismissing Fairborn’s counterclaim as moot, due to a rezoning of the subject property through an initiative referendum which passed as a result of the November 1990 election. The corner lot is now rezoned to permit the commercial development requested by Singer. Because Singer prayed for money damages allegedly incurred from Fairborn’s denial of his rezoning petition, in addition to appealing the denial to the trial court, his cause of action is not entirely moot, although parts of it are.

II

Singer’s first assignment of error is as follows:

*813 “The trial court erred in entering summary judgment in favor of the defendants/appellees as no motion was pending before the court.”

Singer contends that because he filed an amended complaint after Fair-born’s motion to dismiss was converted into a motion for summary judgment, the motion for summary judgment was rendered moot; and because Fairborn failed to renew its motion for summary judgment after answering the amended complaint, there was no motion pending before the trial court. Singer’s position is that Fairborn had to elect between renewing the motion for summary judgment and answering the amended complaint.

Singer’s amended complaint alleged fraudulent misrepresentations by individual defendants in addition to the identical claims of the initial complaint. Pursuant to Civ.R. 15(A), Fairborn was required to respond to the amended complaint filed by Singer. The Civil Rules do not provide that a pending motion for summary judgment is rendered void by the filing of an amended complaint. There is no affirmative duty upon the moving party to renew its motion for summary judgment as Singer contends, at least in the absence of any amendment to the complaint that would affect the issues raised in the motion for summary judgment.

Singer’s first assignment of error is overruled.

III

Singer’s second, third and fifth assignments of error are as follows: “The trial court erred in holding that the plaintiffs/appellants were es-topped under the Greenhills case from challenging the constitutionality of the city of Fairborn’s taking of their property.”

“The trial court’s decision granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants was not supported by the facts.”

“The trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants in all respects as estoppel under Greenhills does not preclude the plaintiffs/appellants’ challenge to the constitutionality of the defendants’ actions or the constitutionality of the three/fourths majority requirement of Fairborn City Council to overrule the decisions of the Fairborn Planning Board.”

In granting Fairborn’s motion for summary judgment, the trial court relied upon Greenhills Home Owners Corp. v. Greenhills (1966), 5 Ohio St.2d 207, 34 O.O.2d 420, 215 N.E.2d 403. To render summary judgment, a trial court must determine that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact, that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and that, when the evidence is construed most strongly in the opposing party’s favor, reasonable *814 minds can come to but one conclusion, and that conclusion is adverse to the party against whom the motion for summary judgment is made. Harless v. Willis Day Warehousing Co. (1978), 54 Ohio St.2d 64, 8 O.O.3d 73, 375 N.E.2d 46. Although we conclude that the trial court was correct in granting summary judgment for Fairborn, we reach this conclusion for different reasons than those expressed by the trial court.

Singer alleges four counts in his complaint which we will consider in conjunction with his second, third, and fifth assignments of error on appeal.

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Bluebook (online)
598 N.E.2d 806, 73 Ohio App. 3d 809, 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 3333, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/singer-v-city-of-fairborn-ohioctapp-1991.