The highly publicized dispute between branches of a prominent Cincinnati family arose from a 1984 decision by one family branch to sell shares of a family- controlled soft drink bottling business held in trust, leaving the business in the control of another family branch. Twenty years later, in 2004, their soft drink bottling business sold for approximately $400 million. But the family trust which had sold its interest in the business was worth only $800,000. When they heard of their relatives’ windfall, the family members who decided to sell in 1984 had second thoughts, and filed suit in 2006 alleging breach of fiduciary duty. They claimed that a family patriarch who served as trustee in 1984 had “bullied” them into selling their shares.

The Ohio Supreme Court found that the plaintiffs waited too long to take their claim to court. The Court found that if the family members really had been “bullied” into a sale against their will in 1984, the four-year statute of limitations would have started to run then – when they should have known something was amiss.

As Justice Paul Pfeifer acknowledged, “a lot of carbonated water has gone under the bridge” from 1984 until the lawsuit was filed in 2006. By dismissing the case on a Motion to Dismiss filed by Ulmer & Berne and other parties, the Court’s decision “nips in the bud a lawsuit that could be a real life Jarndyce v. Jarndyce,” as Justice Pfeifer noted.