By Larry Briscoe
Correspondent
A long-running lawsuit to remove Carol Solomon from the West Tawakoni City Council was dismissed Thursday by the Fifth District Court of Appeals of Texas at Dallas.
“Because we conclude the cause is moot, we vacate the judgment and dismiss the cause,” the court states in a memorandum opinion, signed Thursday by Justice Molly Francis. Justice Francis wrote the opinion, and the case was decided by Justices Fitzgerald, Francis and Myers.
Solomon appealed the judgment from a jury trial in the 196th District Court of Judge Steve Tittle.
“I am ecstatic it’s over,” Solomon told The Quinlan-Tawakoni News when asked for her feelings after the decision was announced. “My name has been cleared. I can move forward and help the community and keep my head up high.”
Solomon has served on the council for the past six years, first to fill a one and a half year vacancy. She was then elected to the position. After the jury trial, she ran unopposed for reelection.
The suit was filed by former West Tawakoni Mayor Pete Yoho in Oct. 2010. Solomon countersued the following month and denied each and every allegation in Yoho’s petition. The jury trial was held the month before her reelection.
Yoho said after the appeals court decision, “I really don’t have any comment on it.”
The appeal court’s decision states, “Carol Solomon appeals the trial court’s judgment ordering her removed from office as a city of Tawakoni council member. Because we conclude the cause is moot, we vacate the judgment and dismiss the cause.”
The decision states Yoho filed the petition to remove Solomon from office for official misconduct. “The petition alleged city workers removed a tree stump and set a drainage culvert on Solomon’s property without Solomon paying for the work or obtaining a permit,” the decision states. “ Solomon, who was elected in 2010, denied the allegations, filed a counterclaim for defamation and malicious prosecution, and sought sanctions for the filing of a frivolous pleading.
“Although the original petition and each subsequent amended petition asserted that time was of the essence, the removal case did not go to trial until Oct. 2012, two years after the lawsuit was filed and less than two months before Solomon’s term expired. (Solomon’s counterclaims were to be tried later.) The Hunt County district attorney prosecuted the case. After hearing the evidence, a jury found Solomon ‘accepted or agreed to accept’ a benefit from ‘a person she knew to be subject to regulation, inspection or investigation’ by her or the West Tawakoni City Council and that this conduct constituted official misconduct. That same day, the trial court signed an interlocutory judgment ordering her removed from office and then finding it was in the ‘public interest’ to suspend her from office pending appeal. Solomon’s term of office expired on Dec. 1, 2012.
“In the meantime, she was reelected as councilwoman in Nov. 2012. An order nonsuiting the last of Solomon’s counterclaims was signed in April 2013, making the trial court’s interlocutory judgment final. We are prohibited from deciding moot controversies. A justiciable controversy between the parties must exist at every stage of the legal proceedings, including the appeal, or the case is moot. Here, the parties agree the cause of action sought to remove Solomon from her term of office which expired on Dec. 1, 2012. See Reeves v. State ex rel. Mason, 267 S.W. 666, 668 (Tex. 1924) (explaining that each term of office ‘legally becomes an entity, separate and distinct from all other terms of office.’) At that time, only an interlocutory judgment was in place. Before the judgment became final and appealable, Solomon’s term expired, rendering the cause moot.”
The court also ordered that each party would pay its own costs of the appeal.
“After all of appellant Carol Solomon’s costs have been paid, the clerk of the district court is directed to release the balance, if any, of the cash deposit to Carol Solomon,” the decision states.