A Texas Supreme Court ruling is adding another twist to the legal disputes surrounding a downtown Corpus Christi hotel project, though attorneys disagree over what the decision means for the ongoing litigation.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 23, the Texas Supreme Court denied the City of Corpus Christi’s petition for a writ of mandamus and lifted a temporary stay it issued in July.<\/p>\n
The city’s petition stemmed from a lawsuit filed by hotel developer Ajit David challenging the city’s approval of tax incentives for the downtown Homewood Suites by Hilton project.<\/p>\n
David settled his lawsuit against the city in September for $450,000. You can view the settlement here. However, a separate legal dispute involving the hotel developer, Elevate QOF LLC, and the city remains ongoing.<\/p>\n
David pointed to the Supreme Court’s latest ruling as another victory in his efforts to challenge the city’s actions.<\/p>\n
“In all the venues I named, from the county court all the way to the Supreme Court, there was no decision against me or my litigation,” David said.<\/p>\n
He also described the ruling as another victory for transparency and accountability, alleging corruption involving city leadership.<\/p>\n
But attorneys representing the city and Elevate QOF disagree with David’s interpretation.<\/p>\n
Stephen McMains, who represents the city in the separate litigation involving Elevate, said the Supreme Court’s decision was largely expected following David’s settlement.<\/p>\n
“The court had decided now is not the time to hear the issues presented. Most of them were not relevant; most of them were moot in that regard,” McMains said. “Really, the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear those issues doesn’t have any bearing on the recent part of the case or the case going forward.”<\/p>\n
Jeff Lehrman, an attorney representing Elevate, said David’s decision to settle his lawsuit meant he was abandoning the discovery requests and requests for temporary relief that were at the center of the city’s petition before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
“He therefore decided to abandon all of his discovery requests that were the subject matter of the petition with the Supreme Court, and he decided to abandon his injunctive relief request, which was the subject matter of the mandamus with the Supreme Court,” Lehrman said.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court’s order does not resolve the underlying allegations in the separate dispute involving Elevate and the city.<\/p>\n
That lawsuit centers, in part, on allegations that City Council interfered with Elevate’s ability to reach a settlement with David over the hotel incentive dispute.<\/p>\n
“They (City Council) tortiously interfered, it is our position, with my client’s ability to enter into the settlement agreement to resolve this incentive issue,” Lehrman said. “And so, guess what? The city just bought themselves a new lawsuit.”<\/p>\n
McMains says both sides remain firm in their positions as the legal dispute moves forward.<\/p>\n
“Both parties kind of believe what they’ve done is correct in the past, and so litigation will proceed forward,” McMains said.<\/p>\n
Both attorneys said it remains too early to determine how the separate lawsuit will ultimately play out, as the parties have recently submitted additional court filings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas Supreme Court ruling is adding another twist to the legal disputes surrounding a downtown Corpus Christi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-481298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}