‘Grudge match’: Eagle city lawsuit heads to Idaho Supreme Court. What happened

Stan Ridgeway stood outside a brick building on a chilly fall morning in Eagle, Idaho, a stack of papers in his hand.

For 35 years, the nonprofit that Ridgeway, the former Eagle mayor, now helms operated a senior center in the small city building on Old State Street. Called Eagle Senior Citizens Inc., the organization held pinochle and bingo games and put on dances.

That is, until the city terminated its lease in 2023, locked the nonprofit out and sued for $150,000, alleging it had defrauded the city by misrepresenting its finances.

Now, more than two years later, though fraud claims were dismissed, the bitter legal battle is still unfolding. Both parties have appealed parts of a recent court ruling that found city officials guilty of violating the organization’s civil rights, escalating the case to the Idaho Supreme Court.

So how did it get to this point? For Ridgeway, that’s what the stack of papers was for. Binder-clipped together were annotated copies of old newspaper clippings; floor plans of the senior center; letters from city officials; and grainy photographs of the old-guards who advocated for the center’s construction in the 1970s.

“We still have a few members of that committee living who helped raise money (for the building), but most have passed on,” Ridgeway said. “So it’s really hard to get people to actually talk about what really happened back then.”

Eagle vs. Senior Citizens ‘grudge match’: What a judge ruled

In February 2023, the city announced that its partnership with Eagle Senior Citizens was coming to a close. The organization, which leased the State Street building for $1 a year, would have four months to move out. The announcement came shortly after the center came under scrutiny when a member died following an accident during a ride to a medical appointment.

As the move-out date drew near, tensions between city leaders and the seniors’ group grew, court records showed. Then-Mayor Jason Pierce, who unseated Ridgeway in the 2019 election, secretly installed a security camera in the senior center. A week before the lease was up, Pierce directed the city to change the center’s locks. The city took hold of the group’s personal property inside, which included a piano, tables, cabinets and a TV. It held onto the items for two years.

In October, Ada County District Judge Jason Scott upheld a jury’s August finding in what he called the “grudge match” that resulted. The finding: that the city and Pierce were liable for breaching their contract with Eagle Senior Citizens Inc. and violating the organization’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

Pierce and the city were each ordered to pay $2,500 to Eagle Senior Citizens for taking over the building a week before the lease allowed and for seizing the group’s property.

Pierce was also ordered to pay $5,000 in punitive damages, plus $1 in nominal damages for installing the video camera. A civil rights claim against City Council Member Helen Russell, for allegedly accessing the nonprofit’s password-protected records without permission, failed.

But those were only a few of the claims the two parties lobbed at one another over the two-year suit. The first was the city’s claim that Eagle Senior Citizens had committed fraud by failing to disclose savings when it petitioned for city donations during the pandemic. The city wanted $150,000 in donations returned.

Scott dismissed that claim in a pretrial judgment in June, saying the seniors’ group had provided the city with the financial information the city asked for, and had reason to believe the city was “sophisticated” enough to know what it was looking for.

A number of Eagle Senior Citizens’ claims were also dismissed before trial, including that the city wrongfully terminated the lease by not having a cause. The lease formerly had a clause prohibiting no-cause termination, but that had been removed in 2006, though the seniors’ group argued that it was unaware of the change.

In the October order, Scott declared Eagle Senior Citizens the “prevailing party” in the suit but criticized both sides for overestimating the worthiness of their claims. Calling the city’s fraud allegations “weak” and “unwisely” brought, Scott reaffirmed his previous dismissal.

Eagle Senior Citizens, in turn, failed in its main goal, Scott wrote: to prove that its lease was wrongfully terminated and should be reinstated. The “bragging rights” the group instead won, he wrote, were by comparison “unimportant.”

“Both participants in the grudge match devoted resources to this litigation disproportionate to the relief realistically obtainable, misjudging whether the game was worth the candle,” Scott wrote.

Case appealed, headed to Idaho Supreme Court

Neither side was fully satisfied by the decision – or appeared to take Scott’s chastisement to heart.

In an Oct. 29 news release, the city argued that its fraud claims were dismissed “in error” and that it would appeal. City spokesperson Laura Williams clarified in an email to the Statesman that the fraud claims would be the sole focus of the appeal.

But the city also denied that it was found to have violated civil rights – or even that any such claim was brought against it.

“The City would like to correct certain misstatements that have been made to the public and the media regarding this case,” the release said. “… None of the current city council members or the current Mayor Brad Pike were found to have violated anyone’s civil rights in any way or to have acted inappropriately in this matter.”

The Statesman asked Williams for clarification on the statement, noting seeming contradictions found in court records, including that a jury found that Eagle Senior Citizens proved its section 1983 claim, a type of civil-rights claim, against the city. Williams responded by email that she consulted with the city’s attorney, Victor Villegas, who advised her that “the released statement is accurate.”

The city has paid Villegas more than $116,000 for the lawsuit, according to public records obtained by the Statesman on Dec. 10.

What now?

In an interview, Ridgeway expressed frustration with what he argues were inaccuracies in the city release. Noting how much Eagle has grown, he said he is concerned that newcomers won’t know “the truth” about the senior center.

“It’s really hard to know what’s what these days,” he said.

Eagle Senior Citizens has appealed part of the court’s ruling on attorney fees and is hoping to recover more of its estimated $215,000 in costs. Scott estimated that the organization was entitled to roughly $33,000.

In the meantime, Ridgeway said, the nonprofit’s board meets monthly at an apartment complex for seniors off Horseshoe Bend Road but has significantly reduced operations. The city has continued programming for seniors at the State Street building through its Parks and Recreation Department, but Ridgeway contends he’s heard from members that services have declined since his group left.

Asked about those concerns, Ridgeway reminisced about meals, weddings and wakes hosted during the group’s heyday. Perhaps more importantly, Ridgeway emphasized, Eagle Senior Citizens provided services for and by seniors in the community.

He said he’s still holding out hope that, through the appeal, the group could return to State Street someday.