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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Flower Fracas In Pullman Shop Owners File Suit Charging WSU Ruined Their Business

Associated Press

The owners of an on-campus flower store are suing Washington State University and its president, claiming they violated the couple’s right to free speech.

Toma and Jeanine Joseph, owners of Cougars Campus Flowers, say in their lawsuit that WSU put the store’s space out for bid in March to punish them for protesting competing flower sales at WSU’s bookstore.

“(WSU President) Sam Smith was ready to throw us away like a dirty diaper for saying anything,” Jeanine Joseph said.

Toma Joseph, who has operated the campus flower store for 16 years, launched a campaign in January 1996 to stop flower sales at the bookstore. His protest over “unfair competition” eventually reached the university’s board of regents, with the result that the bookstore flower seller was ejected.

Space occupied by Cougars Campus Flowers was put out for public bid in March after the ejected flower seller expressed interest in the location.

The only business owners to bid were the Josephs, who continue to sell flowers from the location. But the couple said the controversy ruined their business.

In their lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Spokane, the Josephs ask for damages for economic loss, as well as mental and emotional anguish.

“If I tried to sell the business now, it would not be worth $1,” because the university has demonstrated it can’t be trusted to allow the business to continue, Toma Joseph said. He said he can’t get a bank loan and that the couple’s plan to finance their retirement by selling the store is finished.

The lawsuit says that before their public protest, they had negotiated a routine renewal of their lease.

But in July 1996, the manager of the Compton Union Building informed the couple that Smith had decided instead to solicit bids for the location, according to the complaint.

In the nine months that followed, Toma Joseph said, he spent money for lawyers and hundreds of hours each week trying to keep the store. His wife, he said, developed diabetes from the stress.

“We treat (WSU administrators) like royalty. At any sign of opposition, orders go out to crush the opposition,” Toma Joseph said. “They don’t know what it is to make a dollar. They have lost touch with the common man.”

The lawsuit is based on federal civil rights law.

In a case from Kansas last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that independent government contractors can’t be fired simply for criticizing their employers. In another case, the court held in favor of the owner of a tow truck service removed from a city rotation list after he supported the mayor’s opponent in a campaign.

“I believe that is exactly what is going on in Mr. Joseph’s case,” said Paul Burns, the Josephs’ Spokane attorney. “Mr. Smith in particular and the university in general initially refused to renew Joseph’s lease for no other reason than in retaliation for his expression of concern over the sale of flowers out of the bookstore.”

The attorney general’s office in Pullman, which represents WSU in lawsuits, had not received a copy of the Josephs’ suit when asked for comment.