A Cook County judge tossed the Chicago Board of Education’s lawsuit against state Rep. Monique Davis, whom school officials say owes more than $83,000 in back rent on the school district-owned office space she uses on the South Side.
But that doesn’t mean her legal troubles are over.
In dismissing the case this morning, Judge Sheldon Garber only agreed that the circuit court was the wrong jurisdiction.
Attorneys for Davis, who was not in court but was represented by the state Attorney General’s office, argued the suit should be dismissed because the board is going after Davis as a state officeholder and the case should be heard in the Illinois Court of Claims.
The court of claims handles civil cases involving the state, including contract disputes such as the one involving Davis.
Garber dismissed the case, filed in December, without prejudice — allowing the case to be refiled in another court, something the attorney for the board of education said he was considering. The unidentified attorney declined to talk to the media after the hearing.
The lawsuit came to light after the inspector general for the board of education released a report detailing how she had been occupying the building rent-free for 7 years, and owed $500,000 in rent, leaseholder taxes and penalties on it.
The board was not only demanding payment, but also moving to evict her.
School officials say they asked Davis to move out of the office in 2002, but Davis told the Sun-Times last month she asked the late School Board President Michael Scott for a new lease.
Board officials sent her correspondence over the next seven years about the office, until they moved to evict her in November.
Davis told the Sun-Times she had done nothing wrong, saying that the board came to her in 2009 with a lease that called on her to pay for building repairs and property taxes.
She didn’t believe she should be responsible for the repairs and that the government-owned building should be tax-exempt.
Read the original article from FOX Chicago News.
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