The facts in the case, Dubois v. Town of Arundel, involved a denial by the Town of Arundel’s Planning Board of an application to renew a conditional use permit submitted by an agricultural composting facility. The Planning Board denied the application during a public hearing, which was not attended by any representative from the composting facility, including the two plaintiffs in the case. Following the Planning Board’s denial, the plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that a memorandum drafted by the Town Planner and distributed to the Planning Board members led to an illegal executive session. The Town of Arundel moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim that would entitle the plaintiffs to relief, which the trial court granted and the plaintiffs then appealed.
On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that a complaint brought under the FOAA is not subject to dismissal for failure to state a claim. However, the Law Court rejected this argument and found no merit for the proposition that a motion to dismiss is barred in the context of a FOAA complaint.
Turning to the substance, the Law Court examined the complaint to determine whether it alleged facts that would entitle the plaintiffs to relief. Here, the Law Court explained that the complaint failed to allege that any action was actually taken during an executive session that would violate the FOAA. On the contrary, the complaint merely alleged that a memo from the Town Planner led to an executive session, and that the Planning Board then held a public hearing at which the composting facility’s application was denied. Consequently, because the complaint failed to allege that any specific action was taken during an executive session, the Law Court found that the trial court properly dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim under the FOAA that would entitle the plaintiffs to relief.
