Incentives suit thrown out

$279 million to get Dell is not public purpose, group said; yes it is, judge rules

By David Rice
Winston-Salem Journal

RALEIGH

A Wake County judge dismissed a lawsuit over $279 million in incentives yesterday that state and local officials approved to get Dell Inc. to build a computer-assembly plant in southeastern Forsyth County.

Public-interest attorneys at the N.C. Center for Constitutional Law, led by Robert Orr, a former justice on the N.C. Supreme Court, filed the lawsuit last year.

They argued that the tax breaks that officials approved for Dell did not serve a public purpose, that they granted "exclusive emoluments" for private benefit that are banned by the state constitution, and that they violated the interstate-commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution by giving a tax advantage to an in-state company.

But Judge Robert Hobgood dismissed all 22 counts from the lawsuit in Wake Superior Court yesterday, siding with a ruling 10 years ago in a case brought by William Maready, a lawyer from Winston-Salem who unsuccessfully sued over incentives to businesses offered by state and local governments.

"Stimulation of the economy involves a public purpose," Hobgood said yesterday in his ruling from the bench.