Appellate court sides with Kewpee

LIMA - The $300,000 a jury awarded Kewpee Hamburgers for land taken to widen part of Allentown Road was appropriate, an appellate court ruled Monday.

The Ohio Department of Transportation appealed the case saying the award was improperly derived from an estimate by Kewpee owner Harry Shutt and a calculation of gross sales divided into the number of parking spaces followed by calculating the loss of 10 spaces that were taken with the state project, ODOT attorney Michael Stokes said.

An ODOT spokesperson could not be reached for comment Monday.

The case focused on an 8-foot swath of land the state took to widen the road. Kewpee argued successfully at trial the land was prime parking spaces that would affect the number of customers that could visit the restaurant at a given time.

Stokes also argued jurors should have been given an instruction that restricted evidence they could consider for the loss of property, not the value of sales.

Kewpee attorney Bruce Ingram had argued the jury made the right decision and no other jury instructions were necessary. Ingram said appraisers often use the income approach to calculating value on a piece of property. He said the state's appraiser said he had valued another restaurant's property based on the same method as Kewpee's appraiser.

The state only had the property valued at $13,000 and offered that amount as a settlement, Ingram said.

Stokes, however, disputed that saying the state offered close to $100,000 to settle the case but talks stalled when Shutt wanted his attorney fees paid.