Young Americans for Liberty has filed suit against the City of Dallas, its hotel corporation, and the Omni Hotel for damages suffered when Dallas forced the Omni to cancel YAL's "Mobilize 2020" event, originally scheduled for August 6-8, 2020 with less than a week's notice.

YAL worked with Dallas and the Omni for months to plan a safe event - from the time that they signed a contract in June until the week before the event was scheduled to begin. But even after multiple assurances that Dallas would not interfere, the Omni canceled the event just three days before the conference was to begin - after more than a thousand young people had purchased ticket, arranged for transportation and time off from work, speakers had set aside time to travel and participate, and vendors had already begun their trek to the Omni.

The Omni cancelled Mobilize 2020 by direction of the City of Dallas even after YAL adopted stringent, fire-marshal-approved safety measures, the last iteration of which were developed in collaboration with Dallas, the Omni, and YAL. The Omni also chose not to cancel untilthe Friday before the event was scheduled to begin.

Had the City and Omni canceled the event even a week prior, YAL would have incurred less than $10,000 in unrecoverable expenses, but as of the Friday before the event, Dallas and the Omni were very clearly working with YAL to hold the event as scheduled. By waiting until the weekend before the event to cancel, Dallas and the Omni caused YAL more than $160,000 in very real economic damages.

On August 3rd the Omni notified YAL that their event was unilaterally canceled. The cancellation was based on the force majeure condition of YAL's contract with the Omni and cited COVID-19 as the emergency preventing completion of the contract.To be clear, there was no sudden revelation of new medical information between the Omni's assurances and the August 3rd cancellation. This was pure power politics, played out by people who have no shame.

YAL's suit contends that, at the least, the cancellation constitutes a breach of contract by the hotel corporation and an infringement of the right to assemble by the City of Dallas as guaranteed by the Texas Constitution. YAL seeks economic damages and a declaration that the City’s actions infringed YAL members’ right to assemble.

You can read the suit in its entirety here. YAL's petition is before the Honorable Dale Tillery in the 134th Judicial District Court.

Norred Law is honored to have filed suit on behalf of YAL in this matter as part of its White Hat Institute class of cases.