EAST ST. LOUIS - Landlord Kevin Link claims Granite City charged him with ordinance violations in 2019 as punishment for opposing an ordinance that compelled eviction of renters that police connected to criminals.
Link’s counsel Thomas Maag and Peter Maag of Wood River sued the city at Madison County circuit court in April, claiming it violated Link’s free speech.
They claimed the charges were dismissed last October.
“Said cases were filed and prosecuted without probable cause to believe that plaintiff was actually in violation of any law,” they wrote.
They claimed the city filed the cases in accordance with a policy to punish Link for his objection to the ordinance.
They sought damages and an injunction barring the city from reinstating any such actions.
City counsel Erin Phillips of Wood River removed the complaint to U.S. district court on June 18, claiming it raised issues under the U.S. Constitution.
The clerk randomly assigned Chief District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel.
Granite City amended the ordinance twice in the face of a constitutional challenge but litigation continues at the Seventh Circuit appellate court.
Former residents Deborah Brumit and Andrew Simpson filed the appeal in April, after District Judge Staci Yandle denied their motion to amend the complaint.
Police notified their landlord Clayton Baker in 2019 that their daughter and a friend stole a van.
Baker didn’t want to evict them and “dragged his feet long enough for them to file this suit,” as the Seventh Circuit put it in a previous decision last year.
Sam Gedge of Arlington, Virginia filed the complaint in October 2019, seeking an injunction against enforcement.
He also sought nominal damages, presumably a dollar, which a court can award when a party didn’t suffer substantial loss to show that the party was right.
Granite City figured out Brumit and Simpson were right and amended the ordinance so it would no longer apply to a renter when a crime happened off the property.
They amended it again in 2020 and dismissed 21 pending cases.
That didn’t end the litigation but Brumit and Simpson narrowed the litigation by terminating their lease and leaving the city in 2022.
The injunction no longer carried any weight and nothing remained but nominal damages.
Yandle granted summary judgment to the city, finding the ordinance as amended satisfied constitutional review.
Brumit and Simpson appealed and the Seventh Circuit decided last year that Yandle took the matter too seriously.
They found she should have dismissed the case for lack of a justiciable controversy.
They found thousands of evictions begin every year only to be abandoned when a plaintiff gives up or a court blocks the procedure.
“We asked at oral argument whether these unsuccessful efforts ever lead to nominal damages. Plaintiffs have not found such a case," they wrote.
They remanded the case to Yandle and directed her to dismiss it.
Before their order hit the docket, Gedge moved to amend the complaint and add a claim for compensatory damages.
Yandle denied it in March, finding Brumit and Simpson had adequate opportunities throughout the litigation to seek leave to include compensatory damages.
Gedge’s May 20 appeal brief claimed Granite City issued more than 300 eviction demands and based more than 100 on crimes that did not happen at the homes.
He claimed the city ordered a family’s eviction because a member kicked a police officer’s leg at a church picnic more than a mile from home.
He claimed it ordered eviction of a father and four children because his wife was caught with drugs elsewhere in town.
He claimed it ordered evictions of three households because members shoplifted from Walmart and drove with a revoked license and because a guest stole mail.