On September 29, 2014 County Attorney Andrew Lucas appeared as the State of Texas against me and took over the lawsuit attempting to remove me from the office I was put into by the voters of Somervell County

On September 10, 2019 a Final Judgment was signed in 249th District Court by Judge Weeks against the State of Texas

On November 7th, 2019 the Office of Attorney General told County Attorney Andrew Lucas that Somervell County is responsible for paying the final judgment on the lawsuit it pursued.

On November 18th, 2019 the Somervell County Commissioners Court met to discuss that letter and took no action.

On November 19th, 2019 the County Attorney emails Harper attorney claiming 'the commissioners declined your demands'.

On December 2nd, 2019 I talk with County Commissioner Wade Busch, decide to email all the commissioners at that point.

On December 2nd, 2019 I, Paul Harper, sent an email to the Somervell County Commissioners and received NO response and NO meeting was called.

The contents of that email that I had sent are below:

From: Paul Harper
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2019 3:56 PM
To: larry.hulsey@co.somervell.tx.us; Dwayne.Johnson@co.somervell.tx.us; Kenneth.Wood@co.somervell.tx.us; wade.busch@co.somervell.tx.us
Attachments:Final Judgment Best Harper~1.pdf (115 KB) ; 2019 1107 State of Texas e~1.pdf (55 KB) 
Subject: Request for Agenda item and action to be taken... 

Hello Somervell County Commissioners,

My name is Paul Harper, I am a resident of Somervell County and have been for 20 years.

The attached letter from the Office of Attorney General informs the County Attorney that Somervell County is responsible for paying the final judgment in the case styled 'State of Texas ex rel. George Darrell Best v Paul Reed Harper' that the County Attorney chose to pursue. I have attached a copy of that letter to this email along with a copy of the final judgment they are referring to for reference. I have also put copies of these two files in your physical boxes at the Annex.

I request the following:

1. Call a meeting (or add an agenda item to another meeting) to discuss the OAG letter/final judgment and possibly take action on the final judgment. I would suggest making it a public agenda item since this is an attempt to collect on a final judgment that the OAG says Somervell County is responsible for paying. I would be happy to attend and answer any outstanding questions the Commissioners may have or feel free to call me (898-0354) at home.

2. At the meeting approve paying the judgment without interest, yes I said without interest. Since the Commissioners are apparently unaware of this OAG letter until now I am waiving the interest (almost $3300 now) if you just take care of it in a timely fashion.

Background on this case...

Darrell Best filed a 'Petition for Removal' in an attempt to remove me from the elected office I held as a Hospital District Board Member in 2014 (2 year term).

I hired attorneys to defend myself.

County Attorney Andrew Lucas chose to take over this lawsuit as the State of Texas and pursue the case.

They lost at the 10th Court of Appeals, they lost at the Texas Supreme Court, they lost in 249th District Court.

The Office of Attorney General says Somervell County is responsible for the judgment against the State of Texas because the County Attorney chose to pursue this case in the name of the State. This is why we are now at this point and I am coming to you to move forward with resolving and paying this judgment in the amount of $268,723, that was incurred by the County Attorney.

Thanks in advance for your assistance in resolving this issue.

Paul Harper 

On December 6th, 2019 I discussed with County Commissioner Dwayne Johnson to ensure he received the email and he confirmed receipt but he did not seem to want to resolve this issue. 

On December 9th, 2019 I discussed with County Judge Danny Chambers and it seemed clear to me that Somervell County had no interest in acting in good faith to resolve this issue. Want to act like they aren't responsible when the Texas Assistant Attorney General said otherwise.

On December 16th, 2019 So after no action and no progress, sent notice of lawsuit

I was trying to save Somervell County money by telling them they could just pay me without the interest but after getting the runaround that is gone now. Whether the County Attorney and County Judge are misleading the County Commissioners at this point on the details of the case to make the County Attorney look better is moot. The County Commissioners are now complicit in adding more money to this total by not taking action and allowing interest to accrue that could have otherwise been avoided. I didn't want to sue Somervell County but they have forced this by not taking steps to resolve the judgment.