City, petitioners trade competing court actions

In what appears to be a ping-pong match of legal precedents, the Town of Ocean City and anti-tax group Ocean City Taxpayers for Social Justice (OCTSJ) traded court summons with each other this week, each in an attempt to block the efforts of the other party.

OCTSJ has filed a case in U.S. District Court, claiming relief under habeas corpus for what the group’s founder, local landlord Tony Christ, is calling an unlawful suppression of his petition to set a tax rate ceiling.

At the same time that Christ is seeking federal judgment, the city is continuing to seek declaratory judgment over the legality, under Maryland law, of a petition the city believes would illegally strip the municipality of the power to set its own taxes.

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