⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

An unfinished street beside an Ohio home has produced a dispute over who owns the land and who must maintain it. Tenisha Wilson and Denman Gordon live next to Laurens Avenue in South Euclid. Recorded as a street in nineteen sixteen, the disputed strip was never completed as an ordinary public road. Parts have served as a driveway; other parts remain grass and woods. The city required maintenance and repairs at the homeowners’ expense, with citations threatened for noncompliance. The homeowners asked the city to give up the street, but it refused. They contend that the city abandoned the land’s road purpose long ago. The city points to a water main and public use as reasons its rights continue. After earlier state-court litigation, a federal judge ruled that abandonment made the homeowners owners of the strip. The judge separately rejected their equal-protection claim. The city appeals the ownership ruling; the homeowners cross-appeal the equal-protection ruling. This argument addresses both challenges, not a final appellate decision. You will hear fee simple determinable: land ownership that automatically ends when a stated condition fails. The parties dispute whether the city’s ownership was conditional on road use and whether that condition ended. Abandonment here involves nonuse and intent, not simply an unpaved appearance. Formally vacating a street is a different route from establishing that rights were already abandoned. The equal-protection theory is called class of one: intentionally treating someone differently from similarly situated people without a rational basis. The homeowners compare their treatment with earlier street vacations. The dispute includes whether those older examples, under different circumstances, are meaningful comparisons.

Tenisha Wilson, et al. v. City of South Euclid (No. 25-4023) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, argued October 21, 2026.