In a decision announced earlier today, the First District Court of Appeals affirmed a victory against the City of Cincinnati in a taxpayer lawsuit. The issue at hand was whether City Council could usurp authority delegated to the City Manager under state law–specifically, by requiring the Manager to submit for Council’s approval the names of nominees to the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority. The court of common pleas held that Council could not, and issued both a declaratory judgment and a permanent injunction prohibiting Council from doing so.
The First District affirmed in all respects, and agreed with the trial court’s statement that the “successful prosecution of the action had prevented illegal government activity in the form of ‘the assumption of power by the Cincinnati city council that it was not entitled to assume or exercise.’”
The case was brought by Christopher Smitherman. He was represented by FSSP lawyers Chris Finney and Josh Bolinger, as well as The Law Firm of Curt C. Hartman.
The case is City of Cincinnati ex rel. Christopher Smitherman v. City of Cincinnati [PDF].
This post was written by Jeffrey M. Nye.
