The state Supreme Court has ruled against Lily Dale’s attempts for a quick court judgment to expel a business owner from the assembly’s grounds.

Supreme Court Justice Grace Hanlon has again denied Lily Dale’s request for summary judgment in its case against Robert and Danielle Reuther, the owners of the Owl’s Nest, in the dispute over unpaid business license fees that the Reuthers stopped paying in 2019. Lily Dale has been trying since 2022 to remove the Reuthers from the spiritualist community. The Reuthers stopped paying the $1,000 fee in 2019, prompting the assembly to claim the contract had been breached and giving reason to have the Reuthers removed from the assembly.

Ambiguity within the documents the Reuthers received, Hanlon wrote in December 2022, means the case should proceed because courts have held courts should not grant requests for summary judgment when there is confusion amongst competing sets of documents.

Lily Dale appealed that ruling, with the case to be heard Oct. 21 by justices of the Fourth Department Appellate Division. While the appeal was pending, Lily Dale continued to argue in subsequent court arguments that the Reuthers should have to pay the business license fee and, ultimately, should be expelled from the Assembly grounds for not following the assembly’s rules and bylaws. Hanlon followed her earlier ruling and denied Lily Dale’s second attempt at summary judgment.

“The court had previously denied a motion for summary judgment on the plaintiff’s first and second cause of action, both of which were breach of contract and specific performance,” Hanlon wrote in a decision released Friday. “If the

Court were to have granted the motion for summary judgment, the order of the court would have been to require the defendant to pay the annual business and license fee that the plaintiff believes they are entitled to, as well as enjoining the defendants from operating the Owl’s Nest Guest House business, or any other business on the Lily Dale campus, along with expelling the defendants from Lily Dale and enjoining the defendants from returning to Lily Dale. … The plaintiffs have not supplied any additional information to the court that strengthens their position that they are entitled to the business fees from the defendants, which as it sits, is the crux of the underlying case. The plaintiffs’ requests are denied.”

In an answer submitted to the state Supreme Court in September 2022, the Reuthers said the claims in Lily Dale’s complaint aren’t authorized under state law, the state constitution, the Lily Dale Assembly bylaws, rules or regulations and, further, that the actions taken by Lily Dale constitute harassment, discrimination and abuse of process against the Reuthers. The Reuthers also say they did not enter into agreements on the terms Lily Dale alleges and can’t prove the Reuthers violated the material terms of any binding or valid contract.

Discovery in the second attempt to remove the Reuthers from the assembly was to have been wrapped up Sept. 16, but attorney Nicole Mastrocinque, acting on behalf of Lily Dale, asked for more time.

“Specifically, Lily Dale requires extra time to thoroughly search for and review electronically stored information as well as hard copy files that are currently stored on the premises,” Mastrocinque wrote in her letter to the state Supreme Court. “These files are crucial to the case and include important documents that are necessary for a comprehensive and fair discovery process.”

Reuther, meanwhile, didn’t argue against the 60-day extension but did question what Lily Dale’s lawyers were hoping to find during the discovery process – and where they hoped to find it.

“We have no business computer or business phones,” Reuther said. “Therefore, any unlimited search of our personal computer or phones would encroach upon our constitutional right to privacy,” Reuther wrote in a reply dated Sept. 12. “We would need to know what specifically they are looking for and specifically how this information relates to their statements in their briefs that the ‘core’ issue is whether or not we have violated the Indentured Agreement’ by refusing to pay an unauthorized ‘associated’ guest house licensing fee.”

A decision has not been entered electronically as of Monday.