Ohio Supreme Court dips into lakefront property case

COLUMBUS (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court is wading into a legal dispute involving the boundary between private property and the public water’s edge along Lake Erie.

The high court heard oral arguments today in a case that pits thousands of lakefront property owners fed up with trespassers against a state agency’s rules to establish public access along the Great Lake.

The sweeping consequences involved were difficult to discern from the detailed legal arguments. They involve more than 100 years of water-rights history, some before Ohio was a state, and feuds over high, natural and low water marks.

Justice Paul Pfeifer at one point verbally threw in the towel over all the seemingly competing theories, asking an attorney to summarize the central legal arguments.