Judge to rule on lawsuit seeking refund of St Louis earnings taxes paid by remote workers during pandemic washingtonexaminer.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonexaminer.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Published May 14, 2021 at 1:45 PM CDT Listen • 18:34
St. Louis County officials have cited Robert Fernandez 64 times and arrested him four more in the last four years all because he stood at the intersection of I-55 and Lindbergh and asked for money.
The people who called the police to complain about him didn’t allege he’d been aggressive or rude. They just said he was asking for money, and they didn’t like it.
“It’s bad enough I can’t even take my kids to a baseball game in the city because of all the homeless beggars,” one caller told St. Louis County Police, according to court files. “I’ll be damned if they’re going to start invading St. Louis County.”
Judge awards homeless man $150K in Missouri panhandling case
May 12, 2021
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ST. LOUIS (AP) A federal judge says a Missouri county cannot enforce ordinances that target panhandlers and violate their free-speech rights, and has awarded $150,000 to a homeless man who was cited 31 times.
Robert Fernandez has also been arrested four times in St. Louis County for soliciting without a license.
“County police officers repeatedly arrested and detained (Fernandez) for engaging in protected First Amendment speech, pursuant to an unconstitutional ordinance defendant implemented and enforced,” U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. wrote in his decision Tuesday.
The judge said the county cannot enforce an anti-vagrancy ordinance, one barring people from standing in a road to solicit, and another covering solicitor licensing, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Plaintiffs in the litigation, filed last month, sought a temporary restraining order against the city
Credit: KSDK Published: 6:46 AM CDT April 6, 2021 Updated: 6:46 AM CDT April 6, 2021
ST. LOUIS A federal judge has denied an initial bid to force the city of St. Louis to change its earnings tax refund forms, an early decision in litigation over the city s interpretation of the tax amid the pandemic.
The lawsuit argues that the city is wrongly denying earnings tax refunds for nonresidents who are employed by firms in the city but worked at homes outside the jurisdiction during the pandemic. For last year, refunds on the 1% tax, which often come because employers withhold the money, could be worth millions of dollars.