Testimony

SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE | OPPONENT TESTIMONY ON HOUSE BILL 126

Niki Clum, Executive Director
June 10, 2026

Chair Manning, Vice Chair Reynolds, Ranking Member Hicks-Hudson, and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide opponent testimony regarding House Bill 126. I am Niki Clum, Deputy Director for the Ohio Mayors Alliance. 

The Ohio Mayors Alliance is a bipartisan coalition representing Republican and Democratic mayors from Ohio’s 30 largest cities. We also represent the Village of South Point, which participates in our coalition on behalf of the Mayors Partnership for Progress in Southeast Ohio. Our priorities include protecting the fiscal health of Ohio’s municipalities, preserving Home Rule and local control, and promoting collaboration between state and local governments. 

Ohio’s cities are often the first governments required to respond to public health and public safety crises, including the opioid epidemic, environmental contamination, dangerous products, and other emerging threats. In doing so, municipalities provide services, absorb costs, and protect residents. HB 126 would significantly limit the legal tools available to local governments to recover those costs and address resulting harms. 

HB 126 is presented as a codification of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in In re National Prescription Opiate Litigation. However, the Court addressed a narrow legal question involving whether the Ohio Product Liability Act abrogates common-law public nuisance claims arising from the sale of a product. HB 126 extends beyond that specific holding by substantially restricting nuisance-based authority that municipalities have historically relied upon to address serious harms within their communities. 

Ohio’s cities must retain meaningful tools for confronting widespread harm because they are constitutionally charged with protecting the health, safety, and welfare of their residents and are directly accountable to the communities they serve. 

The General Assembly itself has previously recognized the value of nuisance-based remedies when confronting serious community harms. During the 135th General Assembly, Ohio enacted legislation addressing repeated unlawful sales of tobacco and vaping products to minors and made those locations subject to public nuisance law. That policy decision reflected an understanding that some harms are local in nature, require timely intervention, and justify nuisance-based remedies to protect public health and safety.

This committee’s recent discussion regarding the application of nuisance law to data centers further illustrates the continuing importance of preserving local governments’ ability to address emerging impacts that may not have been contemplated when existing statutes were enacted. Municipal leaders cannot predict every future challenge their communities may face. They need sufficient legal tools and flexibility to respond when significant public health, safety, or quality-of-life concerns arise. 

House Bill 126 raises substantial concerns regarding whether municipalities would retain any meaningful avenue to recover costs associated with widespread public harms involving products. The Ohio Product Liability Act primarily addresses personal injury and property damage claims rather than the broader economic losses and abatement costs local governments often incur when responding to large-scale harms. As a result, municipalities have historically relied upon nuisance-based claims in these circumstances. By amending R.C. 715.44, HB 126 forces cities to litigate through OPLA where they are unlikely to meet OPLA’s damages definition. 

When Ohio cities encounter issues like lead pipes, as Columbus is currently litigating, or product-related harms like the Kia and Hyundai vehicle vulnerabilities raised by Cleveland’s Law Director in opponent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, the harm must be abated. Cities do not have unlimited resources to address harms caused by private products, and they cannot always wait for the development of a future statutory remedy before responding. If HB 126 eliminates these nuisance-based claims, taxpayers will ultimately bear financial burdens that should be recoverable from the parties responsible for creating the harm. 

HB 126 reaches too broadly and raises concerns regarding municipal authority, local flexibility, and the ability of communities to respond to future harms. For these reasons, the Ohio Mayors Alliance respectfully opposes HB 126. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to answer any questions.