St. GEORGE — St. George will be allowed to remain a plaintiff in a 2020 lawsuit over business annexations, following Baton Rouge’s attempt to have the new city removed from the suit, The Advocate reported.

A local judge ruled Tuesday allowing St. George to remain a plaintiff, the latest development in a yearslong legal battle that began after the 2019 vote to incorporate St. George, when several businesses requested to join Baton Rouge. The East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council approved those requests at the time.

St. George organizers Norman Browning and Chris Rials filed the lawsuit, claiming the Metro Council illegally annexed several businesses, homes, and public roads into Baton Rouge city limits, while the city of St. George and the St. George Transition District were added as plaintiffs to the case in 2024.

Judge Richard “Chip” Moore overruled Baton Rouge’s attempt to remove St. George and the transition district from the lawsuit, and said he doesn’t think another case like this exists.

Following arguments, Moore said the annexations question will still have to be figured out in another court proceeding, but that “no one ever envisioned a situation where one municipality would seek to annex property that was to be included in another municipality that was already part of the plan.”

“There was some equity rule that I heard a long time ago in law school about clean hands — and the city of Baton Rouge maybe doesn’t have such clean hands in this case,” Moore said.