By DAVID SKOLNICK

Staff writer

YOUNGSTOWN — An attorney for Youngstown asked the 7th District Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court’s decision that denied a city-requested dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the final tenant at the 20 Federal Place downtown building on the grounds of statutory immunity.

Frank Scialdone, an attorney with the Cleveland law firm of Mazanec, Raskin and Ryder, representing the city, wrote that Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney erred when she ruled June 24 that she would not grant summary judgment to Youngstown, which owns the mothballed downtown building on West Federal Street, in the lawsuit filed by Carrier Services Group.

The summary judgment motion was filed Oct. 30, 2024, by the city and three co-defendants: Mayor Jamael Tito Brown; Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works; and Jim Murray, the project’s engineer.

After Sweeney’s decision rejecting summary judgment, which would have dismissed the case, the city filed a July 23 appeal with the 7th District.

After receiving two extensions for more time, the city, through Scialdone, filed its argument Friday.

Scialdone wrote Sweeney “erroneously denied summary judgment on a claim that was never raised against the city and does not avoid the city’s presumption of immunity, erroneously denied well-established immunity for a city’s actions while engaged in the immune governmental function of urban renewal under (state statute), erroneously denied state-law immunity under (state statute) for failing to demonstrate an exception to the individual’s immunity, and erroneously denied qualified immunity to the individual appellants by failing to demonstrate in any specific or particularized way that the individual appellants violated clearly established constitutional law.”

Statutory and qualified immunity is a common defense used by governments in Ohio that gives them immunity from liability in many court cases in which it is performing a government or proprietary function.

In its lawsuit against the city, CSC is seeking more than $500,000 in damages.

CSC will respond to the city’s filing in the appeals court.

The city is also seeking to have oral arguments in the case.

Sweeney rejected the city’s arguments for summary judgment on various grounds.

She denied the city is entitled to governmental immunity because 20 Federal Place, owned by the city, is a commercial building.

Sweeney also rejected the argument that the three co-defendants are protected by qualified immunity.

Sweeney wrote that Shasho decided to cut the electric power to CSG’s premises, as well as fiber optic lines, and “destroy and / or remove the leased premises,” while Brown “condoned and authorized” those actions, and Murray told subcontractors to follow the directives during a project at 20 Federal Place.

Sweeney wrote: “As such, there are issues of fact which prevent the court from summarily concluding that the actions of the individual employees of the city did not violate statutory constitutional rights and are protected by qualified immunity.”

Scialdone wrote the appeals court that “neither Carrier nor the lower court demonstrated that the employees acted with the high level of culpability required to divest them of immunity. Even at its most forgiving prong of recklessness, the lower court gave no indication of how these individual appellants each acted with ‘perverse disregard’ or had a ‘conscious’ understanding that in ‘all probability’ serious injury would constitute ‘something more than mere negligence.'”

In Sweeney’s decision, she wrote she “must deny each of the motions for summary judgment. Material issues of fact remain in dispute that bar the court from granting any of the motions filed by” the city and the three other co-defendants.

Summary judgment seeks to end a case before it goes to trial on the grounds that there is no genuine dispute of facts and “that reasonable minds viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to (one side) can only reach a conclusion adverse to the party against whom the motion for summary judgment is made,” Sweeney wrote.

The city states it properly evicted CSG after Sweeney ruled Dec. 6, 2023, that it was permitted to so and any damages that occurred were the responsibility of the company because it refused to remove items while a $7.4 million remediation project occurred at the 20 W. Federal St. building.

Because of the work, the city removed and damaged CSG’s fiber optic lines, computer servers and equipment when the company wouldn’t remove them. CSG has said the damage exceeded $500,000.

City officials have said the fiber optic line and the power were cut and Carrier didn’t notice either for about two weeks, and it was more than a week after the equipment was moved to the city’s traffic engineering building on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard before the company realized that occurred.

Carrier hasn’t had a valid lease since Sept. 30, 2020, when an old contract expired, and the company failed to renew on a timely basis, Magistrate Dennis J. Sarisky ruled Aug. 23, 2023, and Sweeney upheld Dec. 6, 2023.

The lawsuit, filed May 11, 2023, seeks damages against the city and the three other co-defendants.

The city in May paid $50,000 to Tokio Marine, the city’s insurance company, to cover its deductible in this ongoing lawsuit.

There were 19 tenants, taking up about 20% of the 332,000-square-foot building before eviction notices were sent in July 2022. Some of the tenants received extensions.

The city permitted Carrier to remain the longest of any of the tenants, but eviction was sought Jan. 3, 2023.

The evictions occurred because the city spent $7.4 million – largely funded by a $6.96 million state grant – to remove asbestos and partially demolish the building in order to have it redeveloped. That project was finished a year ago, with nothing done to the building since then.

The city purchased the building in November 2004 after Phar-Mor, a national retail store company, went out of business. The property was the Phar-Mor Centre, the company’s corporate headquarters. Before that, it was the flagship location of Strouss’ department store for several decades.

The city has twice entered into agreements with companies to redevelop the building. Both have failed.

The latest came when city officials announced Aug. 12 that it ended a nonbinding agreement with Bluelofts Inc., a Dallas business that proposed a $55-60 million project, and that $24 million in state and federal historic preservation tax credits would be forfeited.