FAIRHOPE, Ala. - The decision about whether the city of Fairhope can recover $1.3 million in attorney’s fees from the Charles Dyas family in the “Dyas Triangle” lawsuit is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge William H. Steele of the federal district court in Mobile.

Steele took the question under consideration Friday, following the plaintiffs’ response that day to the defendant city and mayor’s Jan. 18 motion for attorney’s fees.

The motion for attorney’s fees followed the judge’s dismissal in December of all federal claims against the defendants, leaving two state claims remaining.

“The Dyases in no way believe that their suit was initiated or pursued in bad faith, nor so patently frivolous as to justify an award of attorney’s fees,” states the plaintiff’s motion filed Jan. 28 by attorneys Matthew McDonald and Daniel Blackburn.

“The Dyases respectfully submit that the city’s actions led to this lawsuit, and that they, in good faith, pursued what they believed to this day to be valid claims. Moreover, undersigned counsel takes particular offense at the notion that they would participate in an orchestrated bad faith lawsuit against a city, or any defendant.”

The Dyas family filed the lawsuit in 2008 claiming the city and Mayor Tim Kant illegally thwarted their ability to develop their “Dyas Triangle” and related property at U.S. Highway 98 and North Section Street, while favoring development of the “Corte Rectangle” property across the highway, where a shopping center was built and anchored by a 54,000-square-foot Publix supermarket.

“Kant repeatedly assured me and other parties working on (our) proposal that that he was supportive of the effort to obtain a ‘big box’ for (our) site in the way that he supported a ‘big box’ for Arthur Corte,” an affidavit of Eric Dyas filed with the plantiffs’ motion states. “Had he been truthful at the inception of that rezoning effort, an application to rezone (our) property would have never been filed since I know that without the mayor’s support for such a project, there is virtually no chance for it to be successful.”

The federal judge is also considering whether to return the lawsuit to Baldwin County Circuit Court for trial where it was first filed in April 2008, or try it in federal court.

The lawsuit is now scheduled for jury selection the first week of May in Mobile federal court.