{"id":181,"date":"2010-04-04T02:38:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-04T02:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terragrafix.com\/blog\/?p=181"},"modified":"2011-04-04T17:51:40","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T17:51:40","slug":"court-rejects-woodfin-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thesecretnewsonline.com\/?p=181","title":{"rendered":"Court Rejects Woodfin Demand"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Marc Albert<\/p>\n

A California appeals court rejected a demand by the Woodfin Suites Hotel that Emeryville taxpayers pay the hotel’s growing legal fees.<\/p>\n

The hotel company, owned and operated by Sam Hardage, a Republican Party activist from San Diego, has fought the city’s living wage ordinance for hotel workers since before it was codified.<\/p>\n

The ordinance, Measure C, was approved by Emeryville voters in November 2005. While other hotel operators, including Sheraton 4 Points, Courtyard by Marriott and Holiday Inn (now Hilton) have complied fully with the law, Mr. Hardage, Woodfin’s owner has stubbornly refused. Hotel workers have faced a string of retaliatory actions, including summary firings. Woodfin has instead launched a string of lawsuits to avoid paying back wages to the workers and seeking to have the measure overturned.<\/p>\n

One of the hotel’s lawsuits sought to force city taxpayers to reimburse the company for its recalcitrant legal strategy. That suit was rejected. An appeal of that decision was rejected in an 11 page decision by the Court of Appeal of the State of California, First Appellate District on March 15.<\/p>\n

You can read the entire document by following this link to a pdf file<\/a><\/p>\n