YOUNGSTOWN – The 7th District Court of Appeals ordered a judge to dismiss claims by the last tenant at the Youngstown-owned 20 Federal Place building against three co-defendants, including the former mayor, but rejected a motion by the city to have the entire lawsuit dropped.

In a July 23 appeal, the city contended the lawsuit filed by Carrier Services Group should be dismissed against it and the three co-defendants on the grounds of statutory and qualified immunity – 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.

The appeals court in a 3-0 decision ruled that Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney erred when she ruled June 24 that the three co-defendants in the lawsuit — former Mayor Jamael Tito Brown; Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works; and Jim Murray, the project’s engineer — should not be dismissed from the case for the same immunity defense.

The appeals court’s Wednesday decision reads: “CSG does not allege, let alone satisfy its burden to show, that the city employees violated a clearly established constitutional right at the time of the challenged conduct,” and “in sum, because CSG did not meet its burden to show that the city employees violated its due process rights, the trial court erred in failing to grant qualified immunity to the city employees.”

The appeals court rejected the city’s claim of qualified immunity, but wrote that while Sweeney made the right decision, she did so for the wrong reason.

The appeals court wrote that Sweeney as well as attorneys for the city and CSG argued about immunity under a tort liability claim and this was not a tort case because the company “did not have any tort claims pending against the city when the city filed its motion for summary judgment.”

The appeals court wrote: “We agree with the trial court’s denial of the city’s motion for summary judgment, albeit for different reasons. An appellate court may affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for reasons that are different from those put forth by the trial court.”

CSG had sued for declaratory judgment on a lease at 20 Federal Place, breach of contract and a violation of a federal statute allowing lawsuits against governments for civil rights violations. So the city’s motion to seek summary judgment and dismiss the case isn’t valid, the appeals court determined.

The appeals court remanded the case back to Sweeney for further proceedings, including dismissing the three co-defendants from the civil case.

A telephone conference with Dennis J. Sarisky, Sweeney’s magistrate, is scheduled for May 1.

LAWSUIT

In its lawsuit against the city, filed May 11, 2023, CSG, a telecommunications equipment provider that had a location at 20 Federal Place for 10 years, is seeking more than $500,000 in damages.

Sweeney wrote in her June 24 decision 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.

The city argued a $7.4 million project to remove asbestos and partially demolish the building in order to have it redeveloped was “urban renewal.” That project was finished more than a year ago with nothing done to the now-mothballed downtown building at 20 W. Federal St. since then.

Two attempts by the city to have firms redevelop the building failed. In August, $24 million in state and federal historic preservation tax credits for the building were forfeited.

Stephen Pruneski, CSG’s attorney on this case, wrote in a Nov. 26 filing the “city undertook a wide variety of purposeful and intentional acts to interfere with CSG’s use of the premises and damaged their equipment.”

He wrote the city and its contractor “piled dirt, dust and debris outside the entrance to the leased premises inhibiting the ability for anyone to even enter the leased premises,” the “city allowed construction debris to bust open the entrance” and “interfere with sensitive electronic computer equipment,” cut fiber optic lines, terminated electric service and “proceeded to completely destroy” CSG’s space.

The city or its contractor also took CSG equipment, which Pruneski wrote “has now been damaged and is valueless and destroyed, converted and / or lost numerous items of equipment.”

Frank Scialdone, hired by the city as an attorney on this case, wrote in a Dec. 8 filing that “testimony shows that throughout the course of the project, the city tried to accommodate Carrier. Eventually, however, Carrier’s equipment interfered with everyone’s work. The city only resorted to self-help to remove Carrier after consultation with the law department. Even then, the city asked all persons involved with the removal of Carrier equipment to use care.”

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.

Pruneski argued the city accepted payments from the company for renewals for 2021 and 2022 and that Carrier paid yearly and not monthly for nine years.

Invoices for 2021, 2022 and 2023 were given to Carrier by Joyce Gorsky, who worked for the city as an independent contract assisting with 20 Federal Place tenants.

Sarisky agreed with city officials that only the three-member board of control can renew leases and that wasn’t done with Carrier.

In his decision, Sarisky wrote the city needed to give CSG 30 days’ notice of eviction. The city argues it did so on Aug. 24, 2023, while CSG contends the notice had to be 30 days from the date the rent was due under the lease agreement.

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

The evictions occurred because of the project to remove asbestos and partially demolish the building.

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.