A Tale of Two Lawsuits (against East Lansing)

By Lucas Day

A reading of a resolution to discontinue an ordinance that required landlords to provide voter information to tenants at the April 18, 2023, East Lansing City Council meeting marked a speedy conclusion to a lawsuit announced just a month earlier.

The lawsuit, Hagan Reality vs East Lansing, is the second federal suit targeting the city spearheaded by large, well-funded legal groups in recent years. The other, Country Mill Farms vs East Lansing, is still in progress.

The suits are very different, although both involve First Amendment claims. The Country Mill suit was brought over the city’s attempt to exclude from the East Lansing Farmer’s Market a vendor who refuses to host same-gender marriages at its events venue outside of city limits. In the Hagan lawsuit, the realtors argued against a city ordinance that required landlords to distribute voting information to tenants. In the Country Mill case, the claim is over an alleged violation of religious freedom protections, and in the Hagen suit, the claim was over an alleged violation of free speech protections.

The vastly different outcomes provide a glimpse into the risks the city absorbs when it decides to take on legal battles. The twin cases also provide insight into how these large, national legal groups end up suing the City of East Lansing in the first place.

After six years, the Country Mill Farms lawsuit still has no end in sight.

The Country Mill lawsuit dates back to 2017 when Country Mill Farms owner Steve Tennes filed a lawsuit alleging his business was being discriminated against based on his religious beliefs.

Tennes had posted on Facebook that his Charlotte-based business would not allow same-sex couples to be married at its venue. The city, with support from City Council members, then amended its farmer’s market vendor policies to say vendors must comply with the city’s civil rights ordinances and policies. That includes not discriminating against people who are in same-gender relationships.

Then-City Attorney Tom Yeadon told ELi in earlier reporting the city amended its vendor policy after receiving complaints about this particular vendor from residents.

In response to the attempt to eject his business from the market, Tennes filed his lawsuit. In an early pre-trial decision, U.S. District Court judge Paul Maloney ended up ruling in favor of the farm, saying the city needed to reinstate Country Mill Farm as a vendor at the market pending the ultimate outcome of the case.

The most recent development on the case came in 2021.

“A bench trial was conducted before Judge Maloney in U.S. District Court in July 2021,” City Attorney Anthony Chubb told ELi by email, when asked recently for an update. “The court has taken the matter under advisement but has not yet issued a decision. Until the court issues a decision, the preliminary injunction remains in place allowing Country Mill to participate in the East Lansing Farmers’ Market.”

Country Mill is represented in the suit by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The ADF is a large legal group that takes up right-wing legal cases. The ADF’s website, which solicits donations for its work, accuses President Joe Biden and the “Far-left” of trying to create a “radically different America.”

The ADF’s website highlights topics over which the organization pursues legal action, including anti-abortion cases, “parents’ rights in schools” and cases seeking to stop the teaching of Critical Race Theory. Perhaps most famously, ADF defended a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in 2012. ADF is also the plaintiffs’ attorney in the Texas case challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone for abortion.

The ADF’s website boasts it secures “Generational wins that change the law and culture.” The website says it has more than 4,700 attorneys in its network and has provided upwards of 1.1 million hours of pro-bono service that is worth over $228 million. The ADF claims it has played a role in 72 victories in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and wins 80% of its cases.

The ADF recently returned to local news, as it was announced the group will be defending two Michigan State University (MSU) students suing a professor who required payments to The Rebellion Community as part of a class. The students say the organization holds views that contradict their Christian values. The Rebellion Community’s website lists the professor, Amy Wisner, as one of its “educators.”

While the ADF’s website touts its pro bono services for clients, the cases it brings can be costly for taxpayers when a municipality is sued. Documents obtained by ELi through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveals the Country Mill lawsuit has cost the City of East Lansing $283,000 in legal fees to this point. Those costs could mushroom if an eventual ruling comes out against the city.

Hagan Realty didn’t ask for legal help. It arrived anyway.

In juxtaposition to the Country Mill suit, the Hagan Realty lawsuit ended when the present City Council quickly agreed to discontinue the ordinance being challenged. That case cost the city just $3,172 in legal fees.

While the lawsuit was filed earlier this year, its origins stretch much further back. Years ago, the Hagans complained about a proposed city ordinance that would require landlords to provide their tenants with voting information. When the city passed the ordinance, like many local landlords, the Hagans weren’t happy about it, but they complied and provided their tenants with the necessary information.

That is until recently, when a legal group approached the Hagans and offered pro bono services to get the law off the city books.

“We had not approached them previously requesting them to appeal it,” Matt Hagan told ELi when asked about the origins of the case. “When we were presented with the option of filing the suit [by attorneys from a national organization], we felt like that was probably what it would take to get them to repeal it.”

Hagan explained the legal group, the Thomas More Society (TMS), reached out to them asking if they would like assistance. The TMS told the realtors they had successfully fought a similar ordinance in another city.

Similar to the ADF, the TMS is a large, well-funded legal group that provides pro bono legal services. The group’s website says its practice areas include cases that are pro-life or involve family values, religious liberties and election integrity.

Despite championing causes that are considered to be right of center, the TMS claims to be non-partisan and holds 501(c)(3) status, an IRS classification restricted to charitable organizations.

TMS Special Counsel Erick Kaardal, who represented the Hagans, told ELi in an interview that the firm works with groups like Michigan Fair Elections and Pure Integrity Michigan Elections, as well as community members, to pinpoint potential clients. These are groups that have repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

At the April 18 Council meeting, where the subject of the suit was raised, Mayor Ron Bacon suggested the Hagans may not have known they were the sole defendants named in the suit.

“I did get to have a conversation with the Hagan family and they hope that the tone of the lawsuit wasn’t upsetting to any people in the community,” Bacon said. “They thought it was going to a large component of other people [landlords] signed-on, and when the thing came out, they were the only people left on the ledger.”

When the city discontinued the ordinance, the TMS and the Hagans did not continue to press the issue. Neither pursued asking the court to award them legal fees or damages, and the lawsuit was simply withdrawn. (In an odd twist, this case was also assigned to Judge Maloney.)

“It was never our intention to try and make money off the situation,” Hagan said. “We accomplished what we set out to do.”

Kaardal said he expected a fight when entering the case, based on the group’s past experience fighting similar ordinances in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. He said “good legal work” by Chubb was a big reason Council decided to repeal the ordinance and end the dispute quickly.

“Sometimes you don’t have to fight over things, sometimes you can agree,” he said.

While the low cost of the lawsuit to East Lansing taxpayers is certainly welcome during a time of financial struggles for the city, monetary risk is not the reason given for why the ordinance was repealed.

“Our communication with the city manager and city staff determined that this is not the way we typically do voter outreach,” Chubb said at the April 18 meeting. “It was determined that repealing this would not in any way impair voter outreach within the city.”

Chubb also noted Michigan law has recently changed, allowing voters to register as late as Election Day, making it far easier for those who want to vote to do so.

While Chubb indicated the ordinance repeal will not have a strong impact on voter turnout in East Lansing, a wide ranging investigation by ProPublica from March 1 helps explain TMS’s interest in having this law repealed.

ProPublica reports the TMS has worked for decades to try to increase restrictions on abortion, defending clinic protesters accused of crimes like trespassing, vandalism and violence. But more recently, the firm has latched onto election denialism and played a large role in the “Stop the Steal” movement.

The shift to taking on high-profile election cases has led to a substantial influx in donations to the TMS and has yielded significant results – even when the firm loses in court, according to ProPublica.

In one example highlighted by ProPublica, the TMS tried to contest the 2020 election by challenging grants given by Mark Zuckerberg to help run elections in many states. Despite losing these cases in sometimes spectacular fashion, two dozen states banned private funding for election administration.

Election data shows East Lansing skews hard left in terms of its populace and tends to, in effect, be a one-party town. Laws and policies approved by its councils reflect that political leaning, and that helps explain why the city has been hit twice in close succession by lawsuits brought by right-of-center organizations. Right-leaning towns may be equally hit by lawsuits from big, national, left-of-center legal organizations.

But these two lawsuits against East Lansing are something of a bellwether indicating the growing power of big national legal organizations on the left and the right to bring expensive lawsuits to local governments that may lack the resources to fight back. The consequence of this trend is that local regulations in places like East Lansing may be increasingly shaped not only by local politics and voters, but by well-funded national legal groups seeking to manifest their worldviews.