Ohio Supreme Court: Homeowner Gets $250 From Quicken Loans, but Pandemic Mortgage Class Action Cannot Proceed

In a 6-1 ruling, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that Samuel Voss can collect a $250 penalty because his lender filed his mortgage-payoff notice late in 2020, but that a 2023 state law barring class-action collection of that penalty for 2020 filings means other homeowners cannot sue together as a class.

Awaaz Punjab Investigations Desk22 October 20263 min readRead in all 3 languages

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Hamilton County man is entitled to a $250 payment from his mortgage lender for failing to report within 90 days that his mortgage had been paid off, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled, but a class-action lawsuit by other homeowners who faced the same issue during the early COVID-19 pandemic cannot proceed, Court News Ohio reported.

Source: Court News Ohio

In a 6-1 decision, the court affirmed the part of a First District Court of Appeals ruling allowing Samuel Voss to collect the penalty from Quicken Loans, and reversed the part that would have let a class-action lawsuit against the lender go ahead. Writing for the majority, Justice Daniel R. Hawkins noted that Quicken's late filing of mortgage release notices happened in 2020, when county offices were closed because of COVID-19.

State lawmakers revised Ohio law (R.C. 5301.36) in 2023 to prevent collection of the $250 fine through class-action lawsuits for late filings in 2020 only. Justice Hawkins wrote that because the law does not stop individual lawsuits against lenders for late filings — it only prohibits class-action lawsuits — it does not violate the Ohio Constitution. The court's opinion orders the class decertified, holding that the amended law applies in this case to bar classwide collection of the damages Voss sought on behalf of others.

Source: Supreme Court of Ohio opinion (Justia)

Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices Patrick F. Fischer, R. Patrick DeWine, Jennifer Brunner and Megan E. Shanahan joined Justice Hawkins' opinion. Judge Jill Flagg Lanzinger of the Ninth District Court of Appeals, sitting for Justice Joseph T. Deters, agreed that Voss should be paid but maintained that the First District had correctly allowed the class-action lawsuit to proceed.

The practical effect is narrow but clear: an individual Ohio homeowner in Voss's position can still sue a lender individually over a late 2020 mortgage-release filing and claim the $250 penalty, but homeowners cannot band together in a single class action to collect it for 2020 filings.

Sources: Court News Ohio (the Supreme Court of Ohio's news service); Supreme Court of Ohio slip opinion in Voss v. Quicken Loans, L.L.C., via Justia.