The magistrate heard the case but never filed a decision; the judge ruled anyway
An Ohio appeals court erased more than a year of commercial eviction litigation because the judge who ruled never heard the evidence.
The Eleventh District Court of Appeals held unanimously on September 8 that the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas violated Ohio Civil Rule 53 when the trial judge issued findings of fact in a contested eviction he never presided over.
The dispute centers on two commercial properties in Warren and Girard, Ohio, owned by Six Brothers Investment Properties. Valley Auto Finance has run used car businesses on both sites since 2022.
The two sides split over whether they had a valid lease. Valley Auto claimed the parties signed two written leases in December 2024 with an effective date of January 1, 2024. Valley Auto sued on January 15, 2025, seeking a court order declaring the leases valid and enforceable.
Six Brothers filed eviction actions on February 13, 2025, in Girard Municipal Court and Warren Municipal Court, arguing no valid written leases existed and that Valley Auto occupied the properties as a month-to-month tenant who had not paid February 2025 rent.
The cases were consolidated in the Court of Common Pleas. A magistrate heard the eviction over two days - July 31 and September 11, 2025 - with witnesses and exhibits from both sides.
Then the process broke down. The magistrate never filed a written decision. Three months later, on December 10, 2025, the trial judge issued his own judgment finding the leases unenforceable because they were not properly signed and acknowledged, ruling the parties had an oral month-to-month lease, and holding Six Brothers could not evict without first serving a required 30-day notice.
Under Civil Rule 53, a magistrate who hears a contested matter must issue a written decision giving both sides a chance to file objections and giving the trial judge an evidentiary basis for independent review. None of that happened.
The trial judge "seemingly had no evidence or report before him to decide the contested issues," the court found. The hearing transcript was not part of the record when the judge ruled.
Six Brothers argued the error was harmless because Valley Auto "lost no rights." The court disagreed, citing its 1999 holding in re Bortmas: without a magistrate's decision on the record, the trial court lacked the information for independent analysis.
The case returns to the trial court, where the magistrate must issue a written decision based on the eviction hearing already held. Whether the leases are valid and whether Valley Auto can be evicted remain open.
