Well here we are, I guess a good way through Devon Horse Show and low and behold I received an email gift today: the filing against Eastown Township by The Devon Horse Show. The Right to Know Requests are being answered. Here is the original filing:

But it’s been a minute so I also checked the Chester County court docket. And guess what? Found something interesting. “Removal to U.S. District Court”?

So what does this mean? The term “Removal” is the process of transferring a lawsuit filed in state court (or in this case, Chester County Court) to the United States District Court with jurisdiction over the same area. A defendant can remove a case from state to federal court by filing a notice of removal in federal court and then notifying the state court and the other parties. That means….yup….this Devon Case is now in fed court. Probably makes it more expensive too?

Yes, I have the filing, and will post it. But first the judge. The Honorable Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro. It will be very interesting to see what she thinks of Devon’s litigation, don’t you think? She was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2012. She was confirmed in June, 2013. Here is a little video of her induction day:

From Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts:

Nitza Ileana Quiñones Alejandro is a judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She is the first openly lesbian Latina to serve as a United States federal judge. She was also the first Latina to serve on the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.

Quiñones was born in Puerto Rico and lived on various military bases throughout her childhood, as her father was a First Sergeant in the United States Army. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Puerto Rico, after attending Central Michigan University as an exchange student. She went on to attend the University of Puerto Rico School of Law…Quiñones’ judicial career began in 1990. At the time, the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas had a surprising lack of diversity, despite Philadelphia being one of the most diverse cities in the United States. In an effort to increase Hispanic representation in the judiciary, the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania met with representatives from Governor Robert Casey’s staff to urge the governor to consider the HBA’s recommendation for a judicial vacancy…. Quiñones believed that her experience on the Court of Common Pleas, combined with her experience as a federal employee, would make her well-suited for a federal judgeship. In 2012, President Barack Obama nominated Quiñones to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and her nomination was confirmed in 2013. 

In A Personal Essay published in the Duke Law Scholarship Repository in 2020, Quiñones reflected on the obstacles she has overcome in her career…..While reflecting on the challenges she has overcome, Quiñones wrote “I feel fortunate to have seen such an evolution of acceptance and equality in the legal profession. The world we work in today feels so different from the world in which I spent the first formative years of my career…I delight in the victories, big and small, that have opened the door to this profession a little wider for women, Latinos, ethnic and racial minorities, and people of different sexual orientations. 

~ Pennsylvanians for modern courts

She is an interesting judge, and from what I have seen from researching her cases, fair, thoughtful, and equitable. I can’t help but wonder what she will think of Devon Horse Show’s litigation against Easttown. Will she see it as first world problems?

The thing about this case that I find curious me is the assertion by Devon Horse Show that Easttown Township has violated the 1st Amendment vis-à-vis the freedom of assembly and speech, and am I the only one? For me it is also amusing because one of Devon’s lawyers in this case is the very same person who wanted to deprive me of my 1st Amendment Rights in the Bishop Tube SLAPP suit where I was the named resident. (Eventually that was tossed. In county court and superior court.)

So how has Easttown Township actually violated the 1st Amendment? Are they saying to Devon Horse Show no you can’t have the horse show? I mean obviously not, because Devon is going on now, right? Is this in fact, all about what Devon has to pay for Easttown Township goods and services? How is asking an organization to pay for the municipal services it will be using for a special event wrong? Are the taxpayers of Easttown just supposed to foot the really big bill?

Get your Devon Horse Show Popcorn ready, this will be interesting….