H/T Dave Krieger
Pickens Progress-
Under a ruling today by the Supreme Court of Georgia, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. has won the right to have a jury decide whether the foreclosure sale of its homeless shelter in downtown Atlanta was illegal.
A number of people and organizations have tried to get the Task Force evicted from the building at the corner of Pine and Peachtree streets on the grounds that the Task Force has failed to make payments on the property and is merely “warehousing” homeless people. Among numerous claims brought by the Task Force against numerous defendants, the claim of wrongful foreclosure is one of several that are key to the Task Force’s case.
In today’s unanimous decision, written by Justice Robert Benham, while the Task Force has won some of its claims, it has lost others in a complex and contentious case that has been tied up in litigation for years.
At issue in this appeal are two earlier orders by the Fulton County Superior Court: one that lifted a stay and allowed eviction proceedings against the Task Force to begin, and the other which stated that the majority of the remaining issues raised by the Task Force should be decided by a jury, including whether the foreclosure sale was unlawful and whether the evidence shows a conspiracy against the Task Force and improper interference in its relationships with various public and private funding sources.
Since the time this appeal was filed in the state Supreme Court, attorneys for the Task Force have won a “plea in abatement” – essentially another stay – that prohibits any attempt to evict the Task Force from the property until the litigation is complete. The Georgia Court of Appeals recently upheld that ruling.
