Bob Warden, local attorney from Kent, Washington filed a lawsuit against the City of Seattle and Mayor Greg Nickels with the aim of overturning the gun ban issued by Nickels this morning in U.S. District Court in Seattle at 9:30 a.m.; and then served on defendants via personal service on Jake Nickels at Mayor Nickels' home in West Seattle at 10:00 a.m.

The 32 page suit addresses Executive Order 07-08 issued by Mayor Nickels on June 6, 2008 entitled "Gun Safety at City Facilities." The order directed all City departments to conduct an inventory of present policies, rules, and leases, to determine the extent to which departments could prohibit firearms on City property and to implement plans to make such changes.

The case has been given docket number C09-1686, and assigned to Judge Marsha J. Pechman.

"I'm trying to get this specific rule vacated, but beyond that my intent is to make s ure that in the future another mayor or municipal official somewhere in the state doesn't do it again, because I think it's pretty clear that it violates state law, it violates the state constitution and it violates the 2nd Amendment of the federal constitution. That's why at the end I'm asking for punitive damages against the Mayor personally, not against the city, but punitive damages against the Mayor in his individual capacity to deter future officials from the same kind of conduct."

In the suit it calls for "Actual damages" in the amount of "one dollar," but punitive damages against Nickels to be determined by the judge.
Warden did not specify in the suit what those punitive damages might be but speculated, "It would have to be something substantial, at least $10,000 maybe quite a bit more, who knows? Something that gets an official's attention so they don't think it's worth doing again."

Warden said he has the complete support of his family who gathered at his home for Thanksgiving.
If the ruling goes against him, he plans to appeal.