Homestead Am., Ltd. v. Brown

Citations

• 2024 Ohio 3253

Syllabus

Judgment Reversed. The trial court erred by failing to grant appellants' motions for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Plaintiffs submitted an unsuccessful bid to purchase multi-family residential property and sued the sellers' real estate agent for fraud. Plaintiffs presented evidence at trial regarding the profits and fees they claimed they would have earned if they had purchased the property but did not present any evidence of their out-of-pocket losses resulting from the fraud. The jury returned a $3,540,739 verdict in favor of plaintiffs on their fraud claim. However, Ohio case law, the Restatement of the Law 2d, Torts, and numerous out-of-state decisions demonstrated that when a defendant is liable to a plaintiff for fraud, but there is no contractual agreement between the parties, the plaintiff is limited to recovering their out-of-pocket losses. Accordingly, because the plaintiffs never had a consummated contract to purchase the property, they were limited to recovering their out-of-pocket losses resulting from the fraud. Because plaintiffs failed to present any evidence to establish their out-of-pocket damages, plaintiffs failed to establish the injury element of their fraud claim.