After two years of litigation and winning a motion for summary judgment, the food truck owners intend to “force the city to comply with Judge Nelson’s court order and the Texas Constitution,” according to lead attorney Arif Panju. “Now the city must answer to the Texas Supreme Court.”
On March 18, 2021, the Institute of Justice (IJ) announced in a press release that they would be asking the Texas Supreme Court to intervene due to what the IJ describes as “a direct slap in the face of the Texas courts.”
The City of SPI, “after conferring with the Texas Municipal League, astonishingly chose to defy the district court’s order. The city did not appeal or seek to stay the loss. Instead, it continued enforcing both its cap on food truck permits (ensuring no more than 12 food trucks on the island).”
According to the IJ, the City of SPI “initially claimed that its defiance was because it did not understand the court’s order, but it simultaneously refused to ask the district court for clarity. And at the same time, the city misled the public on its official Facebook page, indicating that the district court had not done what it did.”
In an email exchange about the Motion for Summary Judgement with the outside attorney for the city, Arnold Aguilar, Panju clarified statements discussed by the two in a phone call.
Aguilar: “That order did not specify what it intended in granting the Plaintiffs’ motion, does not set forth the reasons for its issuance, it is not specific in terms, and it does not describe in reasonable detail and not by reference to the complaint or any other document, the acts to be restrained, as required by Rule 683, thus making any implied injunction void and unenforceable.”
Panju: “The City recognizes that the District Court granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment.”
[Island Matters is following this story]
[NOTE: Outside City attorneys assigned to this case, Roger W. Hughes and Arnold Aguilar, have not responded to Island Matters.]
