The Ohio Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a property owner who argued the definition of the word “clean” is too vague to be legally enforceable against his blighted property, which a Huron city attorney called “rat heaven.”
In a unanimous decision, the justices rejected an appeal from Michael Kisil, a Huron dentist who owns six properties around Erie County, local records show. He argued Ohio law requiring that properties be maintained in a “clean, safe, secure and sanitary condition” so they don’t “cause a blighting problem” is too ambiguous to be legally enforceable.
The alleged conditions at Kisil’s property, if proven true, “clearly cause a blighting problem and adversely affect public safety,” the justices wrote in their opinion. Their ruling sends the case back to municipal court to proceed.
The court’s decision rejects an argument that could have knocked down base level property laws that give local governments power to prosecute landowners who refuse to fix up their neighborhood eyesores.
And it could have rippled outward dramatically. Huron adopted a boilerplate law called the International Property Maintenance Code, which is used by more than 600 jurisdictions.
In 2022, after first issuing written warnings, the City of Huron criminally charged Kisil with six property violations. They said the house, rife with holes on the roof and garage, hadn’t had running water since 2010. Its break wall was falling into the Huron River behind the house. There were lawnmowers, barrels, six boats and trailers in the yard, plus runaway vegetation (including poison ivy) in the front yard, according to the criminal complaint.
The charges are fourth degree misdemeanors, which carry a maximum sentence of 30 days and up to a $250 fine.
Lower court sides with Kisil
A municipal court judge at first sided with Kisil. He wrote that the local ordinance didn’t define “clean” or “sanitary,” and that another Ohio court in 2016 threw out a case in Youngstown for similar reasons of unconstitutional vagueness about the law.
But appellate judges overturned the municipal court’s ruling in the Kisil case. And during oral arguments at the Supreme Court, several justices voiced skepticism over the notion that Kisil didn’t know if his property was “clean.”
Jeffrey Moeller, an attorney representing the city, called the place a “riparian junkyard.”
“Open to the elements house, hole in the roof, on the river, thickets overgrown, boats turned over, barrels, and a break wall falling into a navigable part of the Huron River,” he said. “That is rat heaven.”
Matthew Craig, an attorney for Kisil, said the City of Huron violated Kisil’s right to due process in its “arbitrary enforcement” against him. How, Craig asked, is anyone supposed to know what “clean” means? Does he have to pressure wash the house? Mow the grass? A person can’t be expected to know how to comply, Craig said.
The justices largely dismissed the argument, pointing out the written notice beforehand and what they described as egregious alleged violations.
Craig, in an email, stood by his arguments and insisted the law as written is impermissibly vague. He said he couldn’t immediately answer whether Kisil planned to continue litigating the matter or clean up the property.
“Fixing up the property now won’t make the charges go away,” he said.
An earlier version of this article erroneously referred to Michael Kisil as a landlord. His attorney said he didn’t rent out the properties to anyone.