YOUNGSTOWN — City officials asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a company suing the city for demolishing a South Meridian Road building without notice.

In a response to the lawsuit by Armadillo Development LLC of Lisbon, an attorney for the city’s insurance company wrote that Youngstown “denies all liability” in the Sept. 16 demolition of the former Italian American War Veterans Post 3 building at 113 S. Meridian Road.

Nicholas Brown, an attorney with the Cleveland law firm of Mazanec, Raskin & Ryder, representing the city in this case, said the lawsuit should be dismissed for various reasons.

They include Armadillo “fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,” “failed to mitigate their damages,” and the city has qualified immunity — a defense used by governments in Ohio that gives them immunity from liability as a defense in which it is performing a government or proprietary function.

Brown wrote, “To the extent that plaintiff sustained any losses and damages alleged, which defendant denies, then said losses and damages are the direct and proximate result of plaintiff’s own conduct, which bars plaintiff from any recovery against defendant.”

Brown added, “Any and all actions undertaken by this defendant were motivated by the public’s health, safety and welfare.”

Judge Benita Y. Pearson of the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Ohio, who is assigned to this case, scheduled a Feb. 4 telephone “case management conference” before Brown responded to the lawsuit.

Armadillo filed the lawsuit Nov. 3 in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court with it assigned to Judge R. Scott Krichbaum.

But on Dec. 4, John Pinzone, another attorney with the Mazanec law firm, had it transferred to federal court because it involves a claim “over which this court has original jurisdiction and involving a claim or right arising under the Constitution.”

The lawsuit contends the demolition violated Armadillo’s federal Fourth Amendment rights to protect it from an unreasonable search and seizure by the government and its 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.

Armadillo acquired the property April 29, 2021, from the Mahoning County Land Bank, and spent more than $200,000 toward improving the site into a planned commercial space, according to the lawsuit.

The county auditor’s website shows the land bank obtained ownership of the property April 2, 2021. The post shut down in 2011.

On Aug. 22, 2025, then-fire Chief Barry Finley sent an emergency demolition order to James Pierce, the city’s street department construction foreman, stating, “This structure is vacant and structurally unsound. This building is a danger to firefighters who may enter in the event of a fire. I am advising that this structure presents an actual and immediate danger of failure and / or collapse in the event of a fire. This is an immediate emergency situation and it creates an imminent threat to the public health and safety according to Youngstown codes.”

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Douglas Ross of Warren on behalf of Armadillo, contends from the time the company acquired the property until the Sept. 16 demolition, the business “did not receive any correspondence, notices, letters, violations or complaints from the fire chief, the code enforcement office or any other representative of (the city) alleging the property or the improvement was in violation of defendant’s codified ordinances or the improvement was structurally unsound, a danger to firefighters, presented an actual and immediate danger of failure, and / or collapse in the event of fire.”

Ross wrote, “The allegations in the order were meritless,” as Armadillo spent more than $200,000 in improvements, which “were structurally sound, secure and watertight. With this order signed by the fire chief, defendant falsely, pretextually or unreasonably asserted that an emergency existed.”

Ross added the city waited 25 days from Finley’s emergency order to demolish, which “further demonstrates that no real or actual emergency existed.”

In the lawsuit, Ross states the city has “improperly used the ordinance and so-called emergency demolition orders to unlawfully demolish numerous properties in the city of Youngstown without notice to the property owner.”