Arrivederci: Citizen-activist’s suit against City of Columbus over park renaming is dismissed
In September we wrote about a lawsuit filed by a citizen of Columbus, Ohio, who sued his city over its decision to rename a small park, the former Christopher Columbus Square, as Warren Square. In the lawsuit, John Cardi claimed that Italian-American residents should have been consulted before the 2022 name change occurred because Columbus (the Genoan explorer) can be a source of pride for citizens of Italian heritage. Cardi alleged the name change followed a pattern of hostility city hall showed the city’s namesake given the seafarer’s controversial New World actions.
Cardi’s complaint, which attempted to reverse the decision to rename the park, was alas dismissed in December by the trial court. The reason? The plaintiff lacked standing to sue the city government. In its motion to dismiss, the city argued Cardi had not established that he himself was injured by the name change in a way that distinguished him from all other citizens, and thus he lacked traditional standing to sue the government. Cardi’s response was that he enjoyed “public right” standing — the same type of standing we discuss above, which was the subject of the recent Martens case.
Relying on Martens, the trial court ended the Columbus imbroglio altogether. “Rather than traditional standing,” the trial court wrote, “Cardi relies on the public right exception set forth by the Ohio Supreme Court in Sheward.” But the court noted that in Martens “the Ohio Supreme Court overruled Sheward and found that litigants may no longer rely on the public right exception.” The complaint was therefore dismissed, Cardi has not appealed, and the park will live on as Warren Square.
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