Local judge wins a victory in her battle with City of Dallas

Dallas Municipal Judge Phyllis Lister Brown earlier this year fought to stay on the bench while she pursued higher office. Her position was an appointment by the City Council, and the city charter requires appointed officials to step down when seeking higher office. Over the last two decades Brown was re-appointed several times to the position. However, the city sought to remove her after she filed as a candidate in Democratic Primary for the 162nd District Court position. Her current term was slated to end on May 31, 2012.

Her legal counsel filed a petition for injunctive and declaratory relief in November 2011 in anticipation of her kicking off her campaign. Brown’s attorney’s asserted that the charter’s guidelines does not apply to her because she “is neither “an appointive officer of the City” and Brown does not hold a “place or position with the city.” On February 9 a lower court ruled in her favor and allowed her to remain on the bench awaiting trial. But the Dallas City Council voted for her removal and the matter moved forward in the courts.

According to an email from Brown’s spokesperson Colby Walton summarizing the 5^th District’s Court of Appeals ruling on July 5, “The City had appealed the trial court’s adverse ruling with respect to the City’s governmental immunity defense (the “plea to the jurisdiction”), and the Court of Appeals has now affirmed the trial court’s order on that jurisdictional issue and sent the case back down to the trial court (101st District Court – Judge Lowy) for a trial on the merits. A date for the new trial has not yet been set.”

Walton added, “The City’s procedural gambit, the jurisdictional argument, has been denied, and Judge Brown should now be able to get her case heard. And it will be heard by Judge Lowy, whose previous injunction order was based on his finding that Brown had ‘demonstrated a probable right to the relief sought in that the City Officer Resign to Run Provision appears inapplicable on its face to municipal judges.’”

Brown is facing Maricela Moore in a runoff for the Democratic Party nomination. Early voting is July 23-27 with Election Day on July 31.