Chestnut Ridge 156, L.L.C. v. Miller

Summary

The Ohio Seventh District Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a judgment involving application of the Ohio Marketable Title Act to a severed mineral interest. The court held that a trial court must examine each potential root-of-title deed between the severance deed and the most recent qualifying deed to determine whether the interest was extinguished, rather than stopping after finding a later preservation event. The court also concluded that the trial court improperly treated a motion for judgment on the pleadings as one for summary judgment without proper conversion.

Holdings

1. A trial court must examine every potential root-of-title deed in the chain of title between the most recent potential root and the severance deed, continuing until it reaches the severance deed or finds a forty-year period without a savings act that extinguished the interest. The court may not stop after finding that a later deed was followed by a preservation event because an extinguished interest cannot be revived.
2. The trial court could not properly grant summary judgment where appellees filed a Civ.R. 12(C) motion, did not seek or support summary judgment, and the record did not show that the parties received notice of conversion.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court erred by treating the 1981 deed as the only relevant root-of-title deed and terminating its Marketable Title Act analysis after finding a later savings event.
2. Whether the trial court improperly converted appellees' Civ.R. 12(C) motion for judgment on the pleadings into a motion for summary judgment without notice to the parties.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded