Big City Coffee sued Boise State and several officials. A judge dismissed many claims
Parts of a local coffee shop’s lawsuit against Boise State University over its departure from campus were dismissed last week by an Ada County judge.
The suit, filed last October by Big City Coffee, asserted that the school and some high-level officials had violated the coffee shop’s and its owner’s rights, and alleged other wrongdoing connected with Big City leaving the university in October 2020. The coffee shop asked for a minimum of $10 million in damages.
Big City Coffee, which has operated a store on Grove Street for years, was chosen to replace a Starbucks on campus. The coffee shop opened its new branch in August of 2020. Two months later, it was gone.
The lawsuit, which was preceded by the necessary tort claim, alleges that the university pushed the coffee shop off campus after some students took issue with the shop’s support for law enforcement.
Boise State has previously said that it in no way forced the shop to close. On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the university declined to comment on the pending litigation, which now has fewer defendants.
On April 22, 4th District Judge Cynthia Yee-Wallace dismissed many counts, including those personally and officially lodged against the university’s president, Marlene Tromp, and the school itself. The court’s order was first reported by BoiseDev.
Big City Coffee’s owner, Sarah Fendley, has displayed Thin Blue Line merchandise at her coffee shop downtown. Thin Blue Line flags and Blue Lives Matter apparel started appearing frequently in counterprotests to the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests that sprang up in the summer of 2020 after high-profile police killings of Black people.
Fendley’s fiance, Kevin Holtry, is a former Boise Police Department officer who became paralyzed from the waist down in 2016 after a gunfight with a fugitive on the Boise Bench. Holtry’s partner, Brian Holland, killed the fugitive.
Breaking down the Big City Coffee lawsuit
Some of the counts in the suit filed against university employees other than Tromp also were dismissed. Six counts related to the Idaho Constitution, Idaho law or other contractual issues were dismissed entirely.
The judge found that the plaintiff “fail(ed) to plead even the basic facts necessary” for one dismissed count, which alleged fraud by omission.
Counts against the university and administrators in their official capacities were dismissed because the 11th Amendment bars suits against the state, which the university and officials were representatives of, according to Yee-Wallace’s order.
Claims citing violation of the plaintiff’s Fifth Amendment due-process rights were dismissed in their entirety, since the court does not have jurisdiction, the judge wrote. “The Fifth Amendment only applies to the federal government. ... The federal government is not a defendant here.”
But a lot of the suit will remain in court proceedings.
The lawsuit’s claims that First Amendment free speech rights and 14th Amendment procedural due process claims were violated by three university employees — Leslie Webb, vice president of Student Affairs; Alicia Estey, vice president for University Affairs; and Francisco Salinas, assistant to the vice president for Equity Initiatives — can proceed against them individually, according to the jdge’s order.
The same claims lodged against those employees in their “official capacity” were dismissed.
Though the judge said a number of the allegations against the school’s employees were close calls, a count alleging violation of due process under the 14th Amendment will be allowed to proceed against the three same employees as individuals.
‘Summoned’ to a meeting at Boise State
Fendley asserts that in October 2020, a day after posting a social media message in support of first responders, she was “summoned” to a meeting with Webb and Estey.
The suit alleges that Fendley asked for their support and was told by Webb, “That’s not going to happen.”
A representative for a food vendor on campus, Aramark, suggested that the campus location close until January to see whether the controversy would die down, the suit alleges.
After asking whether the university would support Big City Coffee after a temporary closure, Fendley alleges that Estey said, “I think it is best that we part ways.”
The judge wrote that “given the temporal proximity between the allegations in the Complaint and the October 22, 2020 meeting, the court cannot say that Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”
The suit also claims that Webb attended meetings held by a student group, at which complaints about and objections to Big City Coffee were discussed, while also participating in a meeting with the student group during which she discussed “contractual penalties associated with causing the termination of the contract with Big City Coffee.”
Though the court has not made any determinations of liability, the judge said the allegations are enough to pursue claims alleging a violation of free speech rights.
Claims against Tromp
All counts filed against the university’s president — who is “fully committed to the social justice movement,” the suit claimed — were dismissed.
The suit alleged that after receiving a letter from a campus group opposed to the Boise Police Department’s presence on campus — the university has a security contract with BPD — Tromp had called Boise Mayor Lauren McLean in October 2020 to “presumably” have Holtry and Holland “silenced.”
Four weeks later, the lawsuit alleges that Tromp called Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee and “shared her dismay at the public outcry over Big City’s mistreatment, complaining that (the university) risked losing financial and political support due to the controversy.”
The suit also says that Tromp has made “obfuscating” statements since then.
Yee-Wallace found the plaintiff’s claims that Tromp was connected to the coffee shop’s departure from campus unfounded. She wrote that the arguments and allegations “are insufficient to state a claim against Tromp because there are no allegations that could be construed as Tromp having either participated in or caused the alleged constitutional violations at issue.”
The order also said the plaintiffs failed to put Tromp “on notice” of their claims.
Big City Coffee has until May 27 to file an amended complaint, and the defendants then would have until June 24 to respond.
Lawyers representing Big City Coffee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
