Thread by @moll_aj

Plaintiff’s response to Interveners in Robinson/Cole County Court Decision.
19 easy to read tweet thread of brief.
“Putative intervenors (Stl County) improperly allege intervention as of right under Rule 52.12(a), but cannot meet any of the required elements.” #MoLeg @AndStlc

“once they were unhappy with the outcome of the litigation, which is strongly disfavored by
Missouri courts. The putative intervenors' post-Judgment criticisms of this Court's judgment are
just sour grapes, which give them no right to intervene.”

“St. Louis County only attempting intervention at very late stage because its County Executive is extremely displeased with the outcome of the case – not a matter of substantial injustice.” #MoLeg #StL

on December 6, Sam Page was asked, “What happens if the [County] Council rejects a mask mandate?” In response, he immediately stated, “First of all, we are still in a legal quagmire with the Cole County Court and we’ll follow that legal pathway to wherever it ends. #MoLeg

Yet, counties waited until after Judgment was entered, then waited another three weeks and finally filed motions to intervene during the week prior to the date on which the Judgment would become final.
This Court should not join the putative intervenors for the foregoing reasons:

These circumstances do not give any local health authority4 (a.k.a. county medical director), much less any Missouri county employing a medical director, an absolute right to intervene in this case challenging a state regulation. #MoLeg

The Missouri Supreme Court has determined that courts should reject post-Judgment putative intervenors who allow another to represent their interests, then seek to intervene only when they become unhappy with the outcome.

“Substantial justice” is a high bar that the putative intervenors cannot meet. It is clear from the putative intervenors’ actions that they could have filed their motions to intervene long ago.

Page’s remarks in his press conference criticizing the judge, calling the Plaintiffs names, interjecting partisan politics, and spreading doom and gloom is evidence that he is only filing to intervene in the case because he is angry about the Judgment

The motions to intervene should be ignored or summarily denied.

Indeed, the counties have no legal interests at stake here because they do not possess any protectible due process “rights.”

There are 114 county health departments across the state, 109 of whom did not attempt to intervene. Nonetheless, putative intervenors claim that “chaos now reigns” and “substantial prejudice will befall them” and “community spread of all communicable diseases will skyrocket”

It is highly likely that source of confusion, to the extent it exists, is the letter sent by DHSS to local health agencies, which misstates the Court’s holding and contains other errors about appeals and stays.

Contrary to the unsupported assertions by putative intervenors, the Judgment in this case had absolutely no impact on the many lawful and traditional activities available to local health agencies and their authorities (directors)

to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, contagious diseases, communicable diseases, — it shall be the duty of the local health authority, the director of the department or the director’s designated representative to do the following:

School districts and private schools across the State have, from all accounts, welcomed the opportunity to consider what they believe is best in the absence of unauthorized mandates issued by bureaucratic health directors.

Livingston, Cooper and Jefferson Counties failed to meet procedural requirements to intervene and did not offer any evidence that they have an interest in the subject matter of the litigation. Their requests should be denied.

CONCLUSION
Putative intervenors should be barred from continuing to play politics with this Court’s Judgment and the saga of tyrannical health department rule should finally end, with no opportunity to appeal.

intervenors’ poor grasp of fifth grade civics. The putative intervenors’ motions should be either ignored or denied for the reasons set forth herein.

END THREAD 19/19