Karl Schneider and Trina Goethals successfully represented a brokerage in a breach of fiduciary duty claim, along with several ancillary issues, in which purchasers of real property sued the brokerage and its agent alleging that latent and patent defects were found for which they were not warned and not properly advised. Additionally, Plaintiffs contented that because the occupants had special needs, additional inspections should have been conducted. On behalf of the Defendant brokerage, Maguire & Schneider successfully argued that the agent and the brokerage fulfilled all of their duties under Ohio law in properly advising the purchasers of all available inspections and relaying all of the information that was disclosed to them about the property. The Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas agreed that the agent and brokerage fulfilled their duties under the law and granted summary judgment to the Defendants in full. The purchasers appealed the decision, which was fully briefed and argued to the Eighth District Court of Appeals in February 2011. In March 2011, the Eight District affirmed the trial court’s decision in full (Wolk v. Piano, 2011 Ohio 1065), holding that the agent and brokerage “provided evidence demonstrating that the buyers were sufficiently informed,” that “the buyers failed to establish that the realtor breached her fiduciary duty,” and that the agent and brokerage used best efforts under Ohio Revised Code § 4735.62. On August 24, 2011 the SCO declined jurisdiction.
