Majestic Realty Makes Motion to Terminate Key Obstacle in Plans for NFL Stadium in San Gabriel Valley

Majestic Realty will be asking Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Yaffe to terminate a key obstacle to its plans for an NFL stadium in the San Gabriel Valley. An affiliate of Majestic Realty, Industry East Business Center LLC has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Shiuh-Ming Ellis, Howard Wang and the group called Citizens for Communities Preservation, Inc. The City of Industry is also expected to request that Judge Yaffe have the case thrown out of court. The Ellis and Wang lawsuit was filed in an effort to block the Industry Business Center project in the eastern portion of the City of Industry. The Industry Business Center includes commercial uses and a proposed NFL Stadium.

The motion (Docket: BS119873, Los Angeles Superior Court Case) to dismiss seeks to have the entire lawsuit dismissed and the case ended because the Ellis and Wang lawsuit violated California law which requires all indispensable parties to be named as parties to the lawsuit. The Ellis and Wang lawsuit failed to name the landowner and the lessor of the property, the Industry Urban Development Agency ("IUDA") as party to the case. The case involving the development approvals for the Industry Business Center cannot go forward without the landowner IUDA as part of the lawsuit.

Lawyers for Industry East have asked Judge Yaffe to make his final ruling and dismiss the lawsuit on June 4, 2009. "This was a basic procedural mistake made by Ellis and Wang," according the Chris Garrett, Latham & Watkins, who is representing Industry East. "Their lawyer apparently gambled that he could just ignore the IUDA, even though they are the landowner for the project, received the approvals from the City of Industry, and have a key role in the development," according to Garrett. Because the 30 day statute of limitations expired at the end of March, it is too late for Ellis and Want to fix the error made in their lawsuit.

The Chairman of the IUDA, L. Ronald Cipriani, welcomed the filing of the motion to dismiss by Industry East and the City of Industry. "This project is a key part of the IUDA's plans to serve the public, and under our lease of the land with Industry East, the IUDA is responsible for many of the costs, and will receive much of the profit from Industry Business Center," said Cipriani. "We were very surprised that this lawsuit would just ignore our central role in the project," he added.

John Semcken, of Industry East believes the motion to dismiss is a key part of their relationship with the IUDA. "We view the IUDA as our partner in the Industry Business Center, and we hope this motion to dismiss will protect the IUDA from this flawed lawsuit," he said. "I can't believe that Ellis and Wang's lawyer, Bruce Tepper would just omit the IUDA from the case, especially since he appeared to copy most of his lawsuit from the lawsuit filed by the City of Walnut," said Semcken. The City of Walnut lawsuit against the Industry Business Center project did include the IUDA as one of the real parties in interest named in the case. The City of Walnut lawsuit is now pending before a different judge in Los Angeles Superior Court.