Date decided in progress | Judge sitting Lynn Hughes | |
Full case name Jason Perry v. City of Houston & John Doe(s) Citations U.S. Const. amends. I, IX, XIV, Tex Loc Gov Code 245.002, Village of Willowick v. Olech 528 US 562, 564 (2000), Maryland Manor associates et al v City of Houston (action #H-10-1736 ongoing); Prior actions Carlyle ULTRA v. City of Houston [Pet. Stricken, procedural error] | ||
Jason Perry v. City of Houston is a federal lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Questioning the constitutionality of enforcement measures used by the City of Houston that prevented the plaintiff from operating his muffin restaurant. The case is notable as it is one of the first cases since a lawsuit related to City Council Woman Helen Huey that contains substantive evidence of City Hall corruption at the City of Houston related to building permits, and the destroying of private citizen's property & businesses to meet the personal desires of city workers. One of many questions that is likely to emerge in the case is the question that asks if the city could even enforce a valid ordinance if it chose to not enforce that statute except on persons it did not favor. This constitutional question is likely to cause the case to reach the Fifth Circuit court of appeals and possibly the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Suit notes that the exact employees of the City of Houston who stopped the plaintiff from operating the plaintiff's muffin restaurant were members of the plaintiff's local home owners association. The home owners association had visited the plaintiffs restaurant with a contract to force the plaintiff to add deed restrictions to his deed restriction-less property. The home owners association stated at that meeting that if the plaintiff didn't do what the home owners association wanted they "knew" people at the "city" and would "ruin" the plaintiffs business. At a later time the City of Houston's own attorneys tried to convince these members of this home owners association who were employees of the City of Houston to allow the plaintiff to operate the muffin restaurant. Despite advice of the city's counsel the workers continued to stop the plaintiff from operating plaintiff's restaurant. The employees who prevented the muffin restaurant from operating used a city ordinance to keep the muffin bakery closed that they had chosen to not enforce on dozens of other businesses. The plaintiff alleges he will prove at trial that he was relatively speaking the only person the law was actually enforced on.
The plaintiffs muffin restaurant, Muffin Man (sometimes Muffinman) was controversial and featured a provocative marketing campaign that may have influenced the home owners association. The plaintiff claimed his restaurant was built to sober up drunk drivers as it was surrounded by bars and was an after hours late night restaurant. The city maintained that the neighborhood area was in outrage over how the restaurant had applied for a license to sell alcohol
The plaintiff claims he suffered hundreds of thousands in damages along with emotional damages and requests for punitive damages and in general requests a disincentivizer levied against the city. It is possible that if the plaintiff were to prevail in jury trial that the plaintiff could win damages measured in the millions.
Legal Basis and Constitutional Questions
The plaintiff seeks to have the question found at trial as to if the plaintiff was violating a parking ordinance or not. The plaintiff then seeks to have the question found that even if the plaintiff were to have been found in violation of the ordinance, did the city have the ability to enforce the penal ordinance on the plaintiff while also choosing to not enforce the ordinance on dozens of businesses the city knew as violating the ordinance and simply refused to molest with their ordinance? The city had allowed all of these dozens of other businesses to operate given that they were working on one day meeting the requirements of the law. The plaintiff was working on meeting the requirements of the law as well, but was never given a chance to operate. The suit questions if the city can enforce a law if that enforcement deprives others of their rights secured in the United States Constitution. The suit also seeks to prove that the due process received was so arbitrary or capricious that it is invalid. The plaintiff also questions if the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects one's right to operate a business with out tortuous interference of the government.