After spending the past year trying to convince the public that the county commissioners’ 401(a) retirement plan was illegal, Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers suffered two legal defeats yesterday.
Okaloosa Circuit Court Judge William Stone dismissed both her lawsuit against commissioners Robert Bender, Steven Barry and Lumon May and denied her motion to quash the commissioners’ writ of mandamus that would compel her to make payments to the 401(a) plan.
Childers’ lawsuit asked the court to rule that disbursements to the retirement as unlawful. Judge Stone dismissed her lawsuit because he said the mandamus case “will resolve the determinative issues in the present case.”
Judge Stone wrote, “Both the mandamus action and present case ultimately turn on whether the County’s local retirement plan is unlawful as to elected officials.”
He declared Childers’ lawsuit a “duplicative declaratory action.” In other words, an expensive waste of time that Childers will have the taxpayers pay for.
In denying Childers’ motion to quash the writ of mandamus, Judge Stone wrote Childers’ personal attacks on the commissioners and political disagreements were “not germane to resolving the legal issues presented in this case.”
He ruled, “Having considered the Amended Complaint and the subsequent filings as true and in the light most favorable to the County, the Court finds that County has made a prima facie case for relief.”
The county’s lawsuit against the clerk may now proceed.