The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ordered a lower court to reconsider Brooklyn Park City Council Member Maria Tran\u2019s lawsuit against the city itself, the mayor and Tran’s council colleagues \u2014 nearly one year after the case was dismissed by a Hennepin County District Court judge.<\/p>\n
The higher court affirmed much of the lower court\u2019s ruling, finding a lack of sufficient evidence for Tran\u2019s claims regarding defamation, discrimination and violation of the state\u2019s open meeting law. But a mistake was made when the case was dismissed via summary judgement, according to the appeals court.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reasons for our decision are narrow,\u201d three appeals court judges wrote in their Oct. 5 decision. \u201cWe merely conclude that the district court erred by granting summary judgment without addressing [the] First Amendment retaliation claim. We express no opinion on the merits of that claim, including whether it could survive summary judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tran\u2019s lawsuit alleges her constitutional rights were violated when five council colleagues, including Mayor Hollies Winston, voted to censure her in 2024.<\/p>\n
The council planned to issue a written reprimand after an investigator hired by Brooklyn Park determined that Tran “unfairly criticized” the work performance of a city employee \u2014 but Tran later doubled down on her assertions and verbally argued with her council colleagues at a public meeting.<\/p>\n
The reprimand was upgraded to a censure, which Tran\u2019s lawsuit argues was an act of retaliation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe district court did not address Tran\u2019s argument that the censure and accompanying restrictions constituted retaliation in violation of the First Amendment,\u201d the appeals court judges wrote. \u201cWe conclude that the district court erred by failing to address this claim.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Reuvers, the attorney representing the defendants in this case, described the appeals court decision as simply a chance for the district court to \u201cexplain its reasoning\u201d regarding the First Amendment claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pleased the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of Ms. Tran\u2019s claims under the Open Meeting Law and Minnesota Human Rights Act, as well as her defamation claim,\u201d Reuvers wrote in an email to the Sun Post. \u201cWe remain confident the district court will dismiss the retaliation claim again after providing the requested explanation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reuvers also noted \u201cthe city, its elected officials and staff have remained focused on serving the community\u201d throughout the litigation process.<\/p>\n
Tran\u2019s lawyer, Marshall Tanick, has described the 2024 censure as the \u201cmost sensitive and most important issue\u201d within the lawsuit. He reiterated that point following the appeals court ruling.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, we are pleased with the decision because it recognized there were apparent violations of Tran’s freedom of speech,\u201d Tanick said in a phone call with the Sun Post. \u201cWhile the court did dismiss a number of peripheral claims, the core claim of a freedom of speech violation remains valid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tanick noted the Oct. 5 ruling opened a 30-day window for either side to bring the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court. If neither side takes that step by early November, the case will return to district court for reconsideration on the First Amendment claim.<\/p>\n
Among Tran’s other claims are that her peers violated Minnesota\u2019s open meeting law and engaged in defamation\u00a0\u2014 and that\u00a0the city of Brooklyn Park itself engaged in discrimination.<\/p>\n
Prior arguments<\/p>\n
Tran\u2019s lawsuit was dismissed by the district court in November 2025. It was filed with the appeals court less than two months later, where it remained for much of 2026.<\/p>\n
A panel of appeals court judges heard oral arguments in July, where Tanick described Tran as a \u201cVietnamese native who has overcome many obstacles in her life\u201d to join the Brooklyn Park City Council. He asked the court to reconsider multiple aspects of the lawsuit, though he noted the censure was the most central issue.<\/p>\n
Reuvers, meanwhile, asked the judges to affirm the lower court\u2019s ruling. He highlighted various “bizarre allegations\u201d Tran has made, many of which resurfaced throughout court proceedings last year.<\/p>\n
Reuvers also noted the lower court was not asked to rule on the censure itself, but rather the legality of the Code of Conduct as a whole. Reuvers said the code was \u201cfully constitutional,\u201d contrary to Tanick\u2019s claim that it is “unconstitutionally overbroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tran\u2019s original lawsuit aimed multiple counts of misconduct toward mayor Winston, as well as 2023-2024 council members Christian Eriksen, Nichole Klonowski, XP Lee and Tony McGarvey. Tran argues that her peers violated her rights, unlawfully spent public funds, violated Minnesota\u2019s open meeting law and engaged in defamation. The lawsuit also claimed the city of Brooklyn Park itself engaged in discrimination.<\/p>\n
The claim regarding public funds was dropped when Tanick took over as Tran\u2019s lawyer. Following the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling, the First Amendment claim is the only issue that will be reconsidered by the Hennepin County District Court \u2014 unless the Minnesota Supreme Court intervenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ordered a lower court to reconsider Brooklyn Park City Council Member Maria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[36632,98,100,99,135766,109300,29360,61314,114200,114205,114206,9,24,63,114213,39472,50786],"class_list":["post-366884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-attorney","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-eriksen","tag-hennepin-county-district-court","tag-investigator","tag-lee","tag-maria-tran","tag-minnesota-court-of-appeals","tag-minnesota-supreme-court","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-open-meeting-law","tag-the-sun-post","tag-tran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}