Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers is the Logjam at the top of the State of Texas ex rel Best v Harper suitSomervell County Salon-Glen Rose, Rainbow, Nemo, Glass....Texas


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Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers is the Logjam at the top of the State of Texas ex rel Best v Harper suit
 


19 December 2019 at 11:37:57 AM
salon

Here's my opinion, some editing from original post for brevity and clarity (12/22/2019)

Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers has apparently indicated that he is the reason that Somervell County Commissioners Court is not paying the final  judgment for the State of Texas ex rel Best v Harper. (Maybe he talked about it in that meeting that appeared to violate the Texas Open Meetings Act law) Danny Chambers apparently believes that, despite taking an oath of office to uphold Texas state laws. because he wasn't directly sent a piece of paper in the State of Texas ex rel Best v Harper case with his name on it, he can ignore it and possibly be the one telling the County Commissioners they can ignore it too.  Why , though, is Somervell County responsible for this judgment?  It was the Somervell County Attorney, Andrew Lucas, who chose to pursue this frivolous SLAPP suit. And the county pays HIS bills.   Although he has, in hand, the document from the Texas State Attorney General's office that shows the county is responsible for the State of Texas (ie Andy Lucas) bill to pay, he wants to dismiss that the county is responsible.  This despite the attorney general's office citing a LAW that requires the county to pay.  Didn't Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers take an oath of office to obey the laws of the state?  Here is the link to the Notice of Lawsuit Against  Somervell County.

The State of Texas represented by Somervell County Attorney Andrew Lucas sued Paul Harper and lost.. repeatedly. Somervell County Commissioners Court paid, on at least eleven occasions for the outside attorney,C Alfred MacKenzie,  (the pic at right is MacKenzie and Lucas at the Texas Supreme Court) that Lucas had to hire to represent him in the frivolous lawsuit Lucas started. Why did Somervell County Commissioners Court pay for the attorney? Because the County is responsible for the bills Andrew Lucas incurs as the State of Texas UNLESS, according to the Texas Attorney General's office,  the actions were non-discretionary. Lucas did not have to take on this case, it was his discretion, so the County paid his attorney costs. (Otherwise, ask yourself, why in the world they wouldn't have been billing the State of Texas Comptroller's office every time, from the start???)  Every commissioner since 2016, which includes Larry Hulsey, Kenneth Wood, John Curtis, Don Kranz, Dwayne Johnson and Wade Busch, have voted to pay these bills. Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers also voted to pay this.ANDY LUCAS AS THE STATE OF TEXAS CHOOSE to pursue some really stupid things that Ron Hankins wrote into a petition that Darrell Best filed in a removal suit. 

The Texas Attorney General's office sent a document after the judgment came down that clearly shows the county is responsible to pay  for Andy Lucas, as representing the State of Texas,  bills. (see screen shot at left). Why? Because Lucas as the State of Texas doing this lawsuit was a discretionary action on the part of Andrew Lucas AS the State of Texas rep.  Notice also the AG's office  says "without any involvement of our office".  I assume the commissioners were shown this paper in the meeting they held on November 18 2019,  but if not, Harper emailed each one of the commissioners with the document and the judgment as well as put a copy in the box outside each one's office. There is, therefore, no excuse to pretend ignorance or try to shift the responsibility away from themselves.

 

 

It's interesting to me because Lucas chose not to appeal the final judgment so let's look at the money. The judge put in the specific amounts that were expected to be racked up if Lucas had appealed the final judgment (Note that the District Court judge found the amounts reasonable). Being real clear here, this appeal, IF TAKEN, was NOT to re-argue the merits of the frivolous lawsuit that Andy Lucas brought in the first place, that part is OVER. It's IF he just didn't like the amount of money that the judge said the State of Texas had to pay. IF Lucas had gone to court and then Harper won on appeal, there would have been $50,000 for the 10th court of appeals, $12,000 if reviewing to the Texas Supreme Court, $50,000 if Texas Supreme Court sought a briefing on the merits, $15,000 if the Texas Supreme Court granted oral argument, and another $10,000 if Harper had to respond to a motion from rehearing from Texas Supreme Court. That's a lot of money and, although, again, Lucas could have appealed, he chose not to do so, so the final judgment ruling stands. In my opinion, I believe he knew he wasn't going to win, so it would have been throwing good money after bad. Perhaps Danny had a part in telling him not to do it. After all, Andy Lucas testified under oath that he kept Danny apprised of everything going on in the State of Texas ex rel Best v Harper case. See this also, which happened about an hour before Lucas filed an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court initially. .  The video from Lucas talking about how "I've kept the county judge updated on the progress of the suit so he's aware at each stage what's going on " is also at that link. 

Anyway, the responsibility for this NOW, it seems to me, belongs to Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers primarily and secondarily by the recalcitrant Somervell County Commissioners to pay the judgment that Lucas as the State of Texas incurred for the frivilous lawsuit State of Texas ex rel Best v Harper.


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