Ocean Pines Progress Jan. 6 Special Edition

Jan. 6., 2022 • 443-359-7527

SPECIAL REPORT

Rick Farr prevails in voter eligibility case; Judge Campen rejects OPA arguments Court orders board to seat winning candidate in 2021 election By TOM STAUSS Publisher udge Sidney Campen late in the afternoon of Jan. 5 issued a decision in the Richard D. Farr vs. Ocean Pines Association candidate eligibility case declaring that Farr won the 2021 Board of Directors election and should be immediately seated on the board. He ruled that Farr and incumbent candidate Frank Daly “shall” be installed on the board in a special meeting or at the next regular meeting of the board for three-year terms backdated to Aug. 15 of last year. Judge Campen ruled that Farr, as an equitable owner of property in Ocean Pines, “at all relevant times was qualified as a candidate for election” and that the “Board of Directors ... acted improperly, mistakenly, and without good faith, in contravention of the By-laws, the Charter, and Declarations, by attempting to invalidate” his candidacy. These attempts occurred after his candidacy had been certified by former OPA Secretary Camilla Rogers and he had been permitted “to be included on all distributed ballots, and after many votes had already been cast and received by the Ocean Pines Association,” the judge said. In his ruling, he ordered that the Elections Committee count all votes cast for Farr and other candidates and that the “OPA board shall by appropriate means disseminate and publish the results of the 2021 Election for Board of Directors.” The 33-page decision by Judge Campen effectively dismantled all arguments made by Anthony Dwyer, the lawyer for the OPA’s insurance company, on behalf of the board majority. He affirmed the arguments made on Farr’s behalf by his Ocean City lawyer, Bruce Bright, but with a hint of his own folksy judicial spin. Judge Campen ruled against the OPA on the business

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judgment rule, which precludes judicial review of legitimate business decisions of an organization, absent fraud or bad faith. The efforts by the board “to exclude a popular candidate for election to the board have been conducted in bad faith, and are therefore not protected,” he said. According to the judge, the “OPA maintains that the decisions of its Board, with respect to the 2021 election, were legitimate, reasoned, based on advice Judge Sidney Campen of counsel, and consistent with the OPA By-laws. Specifically, the OPA maintains that regardless of the correctness of the Board Secretary’s interpretations, the rule of non-intervention constrains the court from substituting its judgment for that of the Secretary (and the Board). Therefore, according to the OPA, the court should not intervene, because there has been no showing of fraud or bad faith.” The court, Campen said, “does not agree,” citing a relevant case in which a court “noted that if an organization acts inconsistently with its own rules, its actions may be sufficiently arbitrary to invite judicial review.” He also said the court in that case “also observed that the policy of minimizing judicial involvement in private organizations does not mean that members have no guarantee of procedural fairness.” Judge Campen said Farr’s candidacy was derailed despite his participation in a candidate forum, a campaign of door-knocking, media contacts and making the “community aware of his positions regarding OPA issues. u