The City of Fremont, Ohio, may be responsible for paying damages to local homeowners due to construction the city initiated on a public reservoir.  After a district court agreed that damages did occur, Fremont is still fighting the issue all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court. 

The Ohio Supreme court is now sending the dispute over damages to a privately-owned land easement to mediation, since the original lawsuit was filed back in 2010 and has yet to reach a resolution.  According to Stanley and Kathryn Wasserman, the land owners claiming the damage, city workers damaged the land easement when they were working on the city’s reservoir.  Following the alleged damages, the couple then pursued litigation for remuneration of the damages incurred. 

Those damages, according to the Wassermans, included two ruined drainage tiles that the couple used to drain water from their 70-acre farm in Ballville Township.  The overflow occurred often when excess water filled nearby Minnow Creek, and flowed from the easement on their property to the city’s reservoir site. 

When they took their case before the district court of appeals, the court found that the drainage tiles had indeed been damaged when the city worked on the reservoir.  Following that ruling, the City of Fremont immediately filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court, still disputing their responsibility in the claim.