{"id":3195,"date":"2011-01-18T11:18:38","date_gmt":"2011-01-18T16:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3195"},"modified":"2011-01-18T11:18:38","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T16:18:38","slug":"appeals-court-rules-in-favor-of-ex-police-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3195","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Ex-Police Captain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the District Court of Appeal of Florida Second District, issued a ruling in the case of a former Tampa Police Captain who was forced into retirement after he announced his bid for the Mayor\u2019s Office. The Second District Court reversed the decision of a lower trial court.<\/p>\n<p>The court wrote in the opinion, <strong>\u201cMarion S. Lewis<\/strong> appeals the final summary judgment entered in favor of the City of Tampa by which the trial court concluded that by his qualifying as a candidate to run for mayor of Tampa, he automatically had resigned his position as a captain in the City of Tampa Police Department, We Reverse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The battle between <strong>Marion Lewis<\/strong> and the City of Tampa began when he qualified to run for Mayor in January 2007. <strong>Lewis<\/strong> said he had conferred with the State Elections Office on the \u201cResign To Run\u201d law. That office determined that he was not required to resign his position.<\/p>\n<p>However, the City of Tampa took the position that he was required to resign, stating that once he filed the Oath of Candidate form.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lewis <\/strong>contended<strong> <\/strong>that after filing for the office, he was forced into retirement. In his first lower court appearance, the judge ruled in favor of <strong>Lewis.<\/strong> However, the city filed an appeal and the trial court [private]entered a partial summary judgment in favor of the City. The trial court also denied <strong>Lewis\u2019s <\/strong>motion for summary judgment on an amended counterpetition.<\/p>\n<p>The Justices also wrote, \u201cWe conclude that the trial court erred in entering the final judgment that determined <strong>Lewis <\/strong>automatically resigned from his employment by filing his Oath of Candidate form. We therefore reverse the final judgment and remand with instructions that the trial court enter a final judgment on the City\u2019s complaint consistent with this opinion and consider the remaining allegations of <strong>Lewis\u2019s<\/strong> counterpetition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Tampa native, <strong>Lewis <\/strong>was a Tampa Police officer for 27 years.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, <strong>Lewis <\/strong>withdrew his name as a candidate for the Mayor\u2019s Office, stating that he could not devote his full attention and energy to the campaign because he was waiting on a decision from the Second District Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n<p>When contacted by the <strong><em>Sentinel<\/em><\/strong> on Friday, <strong>Lewis <\/strong>said his attorney notified him of the court\u2019s decision.[\/private]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor On Friday, the District Court of Appeal of Florida Second District, issued a ruling in the case of a former Tampa Police Captain who was forced into retirement after he announced his bid for the Mayor\u2019s Office. The Second District Court reversed the decision of a lower trial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}