A plaintiff’s attorney faults defense tactics for the latest delay in the trial of a lawsuit claiming the city of Fairhope thwarted development at the “Dyas triangle” property on U.S. 98, while paving the way for another large mixed-use commercial and residential project nearby.

Last month, a federal court reset an Aug. 3 jury selection date in the two-year-old lawsuit to Feb. 1, which makes the fourth continuance in a case first filed in April 2008.

The lawsuit claims the city’s different treatment of the two projects was illegal, for which the plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages. The plaintiffs also sought initially to stop construction of the project, which has since been developed as the Shoppes at Fairhope Village, anchored by a Publix Super Market that opened last summer.

“The circumstances that created the necessity of a continuance is the city of Fairhope’s repeated assertion that City Council and Planning Commission members cannot be questioned at all because of a legislative immunity which creates a privilege from even having to testify,” said Matt McDonald, an attorney representing Charles Dyas and other family members in the lawsuit against the city and Mayor Tim Kant. “They initially tried to keep us from taking any depositions at all.”

McDonald said the defense sought to limit the questions plaintiffs could ask of witnesses regarding some of the development decisions involving the two projects, and that subsequent litigation over that issue delayed the trial of the lawsuit.

For more, see the July 3 edition of the Fairhope Courier.