News
Two ousted Nelsonville council members won a legal victory in their bid to get their seats back
By: David Forster
Posted on:
ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Two Nelsonville women who filed a legal action claiming they were improperly removed from the City Council have won a preliminary victory.
The case involves Margarita Nguyen and Carol Powell. Nguyen was elected to a Nelsonville council seat in November 2023 and was chosen as council president.
She resigned three months later over a council dispute but then rescinded her resignation the following morning.
She continued to serve as council president for several meetings in February and March and appointed Powell to a vacant council seat.
Meanwhile, a group of council members chose someone else to fill that vacant council seat and appointed someone to replace Nguyen.
The ensuing conflict over who were the rightful Nelsonville council members came to a head at two council meetings in April, when Powell and then Nguyen were blocked by police officers from taking a seat on the council.
The two went to court to get their seats back. The council members chosen to replace them argued Nguyen and Powell did not file their legal claim soon enough and had lost their right to object to losing their seats.
Under what is known as the doctrine of laches, people making certain legal claims have to do so without too much delay otherwise they lose their right to go to court. How long is too long is for a court to decide.
In this case, an appellate court said it was up to Nguyen and Powell to show they acted quickly enough and concluded they had not.
The Ohio Supreme Court disagreed. It said the appellate court was wrong to put the burden on Nguyen and Powell with respect to laches. Instead, the court said, it should have been up to the replacement council members to demonstrate that the two women did not file their claim in time.
The court also said that based on the evidence presented, Nguyen and Powell did act quickly enough.
Nguyen sent her resignation email to her fellow council members on Feb. 17. She followed up the next morning with another email rescinding her resignation.
On Feb. 25, she received emails from three council members accepting her resignation.
The appeals court said this was the point at which Nguyen was put on notice her seat was in jeopardy. She and Powell filed their legal complaint two months later, on April 26. The appeals court said this was too late.
The Supreme Court disagreed the clock started ticking on Feb. 25 for purposes of laches.
The court noted that Nguyen continued to attend council meetings through March and sit as president. At a special meeting on March 21, four council members voted to put someone else in her seat. Nguyen argues this was unlawful. In any case, it wasn’t until the April 22 meeting that she was prevented from taking her seat.
As for Powell, there was a conflict over who should occupy the vacant council seat: the person chosen by three council members or Powell, who was chosen by Nguyen as council president. The Supreme Court said that as with Nguyen, Powell’s status did not become clear until she was blocked from taking her seat at the April 8 meeting.
Given these key dates in April, the court said, the April 26 court filing did not come too late.
The only issue before the Supreme Court was laches. The court did not decide whether Nguyen and Powell should be put back on the council. The case now goes back to the court of appeals to address that issue.