KCPowercat wrote:Pork Chop wrote:So, with the petitioners demanding that their initiative be placed on the ballot and with a lawsuit most likely happening, does this stop the hotel development? I only ask this because the same issue prevented bonds from being sold for the streetcar until the lawsuit was fully resolved. If that occurs I feel that the petitioners could get their wish and not have the hotel built at all with interest rates slated to raise by the end of the year (barring any unforeseen issues with the economy).
http://www.kansascity.com/news/governme ... 42381.html
I'm thinking this one could be pushed quicker through for a summary judgment....but I honestly have no idea what I'm talking about.
Quicker means the whole process could take 15 months, not 24. The final streetcar judgement was mid Dec 2013. The lawsuit was filed end of Jan 2013. So 10.5 months.
Summary judgements require evidence to back them up. So there's a hearing, and to get a hearing requires legal statements by filed and responses get to be files. Otherwise there's nothing to make a judgement against. A court case vs summary judgement is just to speed up the process, that the judge agrees the argument is so good for one side they don't need to hear more.
And then there's the chance to challenge the validity of the judgement. That's the appeals court level. They can review and refuse or agree to hear the case. That's a nice thing with the courts, they don't have to hear a case, there's all sorts of steps for them to say "you're an idiot, no"
With the streetcar they validated the judgement.
the losing side to submit files paperwork saying why the trial judge was wrong and the winning side gets to show was correct based on the new argument being made, If the appeals court agrees with the losing party then it goes back to trial which in theory could loop back to the appeals court, but in practice theres going to be rules to stop this from happening over and over, plus, there's only so many arguments to make to an appeals court before they will agree with the winning party and stop the circle.
However this whole appeals court path ends up the losing side can apply for the state Supreme Court to hear it. Which isn't a given.
If they don't take it obviously it's over. The last ruling thus is the official one.
In rare cases someone could petition to avoid the lower courts from the start, but you would need a really compelling arguement to get this.
Usually Supreme Court cases happen when there's a compelling arguement that multiple judges are contradicting each other unknowingly, that things have changed in the law and they need to set a court ruling the new way is right, or the lower judges may have not ruled based on the state consultation properly, stuff like that with a big long-term picture to it.
The streetcar case was accepted since it helped solidify certain arguments against forming a TDD are not legally valid and the process the city did followed the state constitution on voting. The arguement against was based on voting rights.
I bet a a possible hotel case will argue that some aspect of state voter rights is being violated by the city. So there will be a back and forth arguement over The rights of voters vs the terms of contracts in a municipal sphere, with various precedents backing timeframes to express rights and all that stuff. It's going to be a fight of who can dig up the best case examples to make their argument stick. One side would have to do a really bad job legally to get a summary judgement given the backing both groups have
My guess is it would take some very clear rulings on the subject, all unified that one side or the other clearly has the rights, with few taking the other stance to go quickly. Once you have deep pockets and he said-no he said arguements court cases tend to drag on,
