COLUMBUS, Ohio – An appellate court ruling could force the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles to reinstate driving privileges for applicants with years old “dormant” judgments against them.
Last week’s ruling from the Columbus-based 10th District Court of Appeals traces back to 2005, when Keith Stone, an uninsured driver at the time, was involved in a car crash and held liable for about $28,000 owed to Nationwide, an insurance company.
Stone didn’t pay, and the BMV heeded a state law calling on it to suspend his license because of the judgment. But years passed without action from Nationwide to collect from Stone, leading the debt to become legally dormant. And Nationwide didn’t seek to revive that debt. By 2022, both Stone and the BMV agreed the debt has grown “dormant and unrevivable,” meaning Stone no longer had a duty to repay it. Therefore, Stone argued, the BMV must reinstate his license.
The agency refused to do so. A Franklin County common pleas judge upheld the agency’s decision, finding Stone must either pay the debt or get Nationwide’s “consent” to vacate the suspension.
But appellate Judge Kristin Boggs in a written opinion called the lower court’s ruling “absurd” to suggest that Stone should pay thousands of dollars to satisfy a debt that he’s no longer legally responsible for. The law, she wrote, requires the BMV to reinstate one’s license if their debt is either satisfied or “stayed,” which would include a legally dormant debt.
Notice that these debts go dormant, the court held, requires “the vacation of a license suspension based on that judgment.”
Jeff Lewis, Stone’s attorney, said the ruling will have statewide implications – it requires the BMV to allow Ohioans to reinstate people’s licenses, even if they have similarly dormant judgments dogging their records.
He said insurers have relied on the BMV as an “enforcer” to collect their debts. This spares insurers the trouble of collecting, he said, when people know they’ll have to pay before getting their licenses back.
“If you think about it, why should the BMV act as a quasi-collection agency for insurance companies?” he said.
