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Couple files to fight Ohio Edison
Deprived of shade trees, a Struthers couple await their day in court.
STRUTHERS — For Maria Delost, the 14 white pine trees Ohio Edison and its tree-cutters chain-sawed down within minutes were a long-term investment in the shade, quiet and privacy of the home she and her husband have shared for the past 23 years.
“It’s an emotional issue. It’s an environmental issue,” she said. “This is a flooding area. ... Where’s the water going to go?” without trees to help absorb it, she asked.
Delost, of Lakeshore Drive, talked Tuesday about the practical and sentimental value of the trees as she pored over photo albums showing the row of trees as a backdrop for family and neighborhood gatherings ever since the Delosts planted them in 1986.
Many of them showed her sons, now 17 and 19, when they were much younger, as they played in the tree-lined yard in all seasons in the quiet, stable, close-knit residential neighborhood on the shore of Lake Hamilton.
“I cried. In fact, my kids had to put me in the house. I was so upset,” Delost said tearfully as she described her reaction to the tree cutting that was under way when she arrived home July 1.
“Everything we have is because of our hard work, and it takes years to make a home, and then, within 10 or 15 minutes, a good part of it is gone,” she lamented.
“As property owners, we do have rights,” she said. “I’m willing to go the distance to fight for something that’s right.”
Since Ohio Edison and Penn Line Service Inc., of Scottdale, Pa., cut the trees down two weeks ago, Delost said the lack of shade has made her house warmer, requiring her to increase the air-conditioning, and she has been hearing more traffic noise from nearby state Route 616.
Delost, a professor of health professions at Youngstown State University, and her husband, Raymond, a local lawyer, sued the electric utility and Penn Line Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for more than $25,000 in compensatory damages and more than $10 million in punitive damages.
The utility has an easement for high-voltage transmission lines that cross the Delost’s backyard.
In the lawsuit, the Delosts say the utility and its tree-cutter trespassed onto their property and cut down these and other trees, leaving behind the stumps and devaluing the property by making it unsightly.
The 14 stumps, still oozing sap, remain in a row perpendicular to the power lines overhead. The trees once provided a natural screen for the Delost’s property, together with shelter for wildlife and a nesting place for birds.
The Delosts said their trees did not interfere with the power lines. Atty. Delost said the nearest tree growth was more than 30 feet from the power lines. Maria Delost said the trees were trimmed annually.
An Ohio Edison spokesman, however, said any trees under its power lines must come out and that its easements allow it to perform “vegetation management” along its power lines to provide safe and reliable electric service.
“To me, as a scientist, show me the proof. Show me why these are dangerous,” Maria Delost said of the trees. “We have evidence that shows quite the opposite.”
She was gratified that the Ohio Supreme Court issued a stay barring the utility from further tree-cutting at her residence while it considers the matter. “Our case has never even been heard ... We’ve never even had our day in court,” she said.
In granting its stay on Tuesday, the state’s top court extended a two-week stay that had been granted by the 7th District Court of Appeals.
In 2006, the Delosts had obtained a temporary restraining order against Ohio Edison from Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, which the appellate court reinstated in 2007, saying the trees posed no threat to the transmission lines.
Last month, that appeals court ruled that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, and not the county common pleas court, would decide the fate of the trees.
Since the 7th District decision contradicted an 8th District Court of Appeals decision, the matter of jurisdiction is now before the Ohio Supreme Court.
Atty. Delost said he’s considering converting Monday’s $10 million plus lawsuit into a class-action suit that would include other landowners with similar complaints about Ohio Edison, and he’s considering whether any government entities that helped the electric utility in its tree-cutting efforts should be added as defendants.
The Delosts said they plan to use any punitive damages they win to establish a fund to help pay legal and other expenses for others who find themselves in similar battles with utilities.
“We’re truly not in this for the money. This is our home. We’re in this for our home,” Maria Delost said.