Court Decisions Democracy SLAPPs American Traffic Solution in Washington State
Democracy SLAPPs American Traffic Solution in Washington State
.by WrongOnRed on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 6:40pm.From our friends in Bellingham, Washington:
Bellingham Judge Gives No Traffic Cameras Initiative the Green Light
This morning, Judge Ira Uhrig denied American Traffic Solution’s (ATS) motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the inclusion of Initiative 2011-01 – the anti-traffic-camera initiative brought by Transportation Safety Coalition and other Washington entities opposing traffic cameras, and found that the lawsuit was a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), recently disallowed by Washington’s legislature. Judge Uhrig then went on to award attorney fees and statutory sanctions of $10,000 against ATS.
Transportation Safety Coalition attorney Stephen Pidgeon called the decision a “landmark” decision, and “the first shot in the courts toward recapturing the country from corporate fascism.”
Judge Uhrig’s decision began with the giving the history of the right of the people to seek a redress of grievances, beginning with the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the First Amendment to the US Constitution and even Washington’s Constitution, to establish a strong legal basis for the right of the people to bring an initiative as a form of redress of grievances.
The Judge also found that ATS had failed to demonstrate any injury in fact or other irreparable harm, saying their damages were speculative, moot, hypothetical, academic, and other adjectives that he would like to have included at that the time of the ruling. Of particular importance was the fact that Bellingham’s City Council had voted to allow the Initiative to proceed, had entered into the contract after the initiative process was underway, and had expressly provided for the initiative within the ATS contract itself.
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