Legal Reasoning in Farmers Branch
October 16, 2007
A state appeals court has refused to throw out a lawsuit against Farmers Branch that says city officials violated open meetings laws by deciding behind closed doors the first version of an ordinance banning apartment landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.
The city had asked the 116th District Court to toss out the lawsuit, primarily because Ordinance 2892 no longer existed. Judge Bruce Priddy
declined, and the city filed an appeal. The city claimed the Mr. Ramos’s suit failed to show sufficient facts to support its allegations and that the claims were moot because Ordinance 2892 had been repealed.
But in her ruling, Judge Francis rejected the city’s arguments.
“If a governmental body illegally deliberates and decides an issue in a closed session, repealing the action so that it can be retaken in a later setting does not vindicate the very right protected by TOMA (Texas Open Meetings Act),†Judge Francis wrote.
So if you steal something and then return it and pay for it properly, the claim of theft is moot?
Technorati Tags: Farmers Branch, Open Meetings, illegal immigration
Posted in Farmers Branch, Open Meetings, illegal immigration
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