Ohio

At the close of 2008, the Cleveland Housing Renewal Project Inc., a private, non-profit housing advocacy group, tried a new legal tack to deal with the havoc the subprime housing fiasco is causing Cleveland, Ohio. It asked Cleveland’s housing court to declare that business practices used by some banks when selling foreclosed properties are creating a public nuisance in violation of the law. The suit asks the court to abate the nuisance by ordering the banks to either fix up the foreclosed houses before selling them or to demolish them entirely.  Read More »

authors: David Axelrad and Lisa Perrochet

Syllabus

Private attorneys hired to prosecute public nuisance actions must be, and must appear to be, neutral. Nonetheless, government plaintiffs frequently seek to augment their prosecutorial resources by retaining private outside counsel on a contingent fee basis to pursue public nuisance claims. This type of retention gives the government's attorney a financial stake in the outcome of litigation that creates an appearance of impropriety affecting the integrity and neutrality of the government's prosecution.  Read More »