Exxxotica, banned by the Dallas City Council in 2016, isn't coming back to Dallas' convention center any time soon. But the porn convention will return to a Dallas federal courtroom following a ruling Wednesday by a federal appeals court.

The court has sent Exxxotica's case against the city of Dallas back to district court, ruling that U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater erred when dismissing the lawsuit last year.

In May 2017, Fitzwater sided with the city's outside attorneys when they argued that the wrong entity sued City Hall after the council banned Exxxotica from the city-owned convention center in February 2016. Fitzwater said Three Expo Events, the plaintiff, lacked standing to file the lawsuit.

Two justices on the appeals court's three-person panel disagreed, ruling Wednesday that it didn't matter who sued the city — Exxxotica, its parent company Three Expo Events or the affiliated Exotica Dallas — because they were all the same entity run by the same person.

"No reasonable factfinder can read the record of the events leading up to and during the City Council meeting without finding that the mayor and City Council firmly intended to make certain that the Exxxotica convention would not be staged by anyone in the Convention Center in 2016," says Wednesday's ruling. "Thus, a realistic sense of the purpose and effect of the resolution in this context was that Three Expo, the undisputed promoter and proposed presenter of Exxxotica 2016, was banned from presenting Exxxotica 2016 at the Dallas Convention Center under any guise or circumstance."

Fitzwater had essentially dismissed the case on a technicality.

Now, the district court will have to deal with the substance of the case, in which Three Expo contends the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center is a "designated public forum" protected by the First Amendment and available to anyone who can afford to rent space there.

"It's great," Three Expo's Dallas attorney Roger Albright said of the ruling. "It absolutely supports our legal position and the constitutional rights of Three Expo to have access to a public forum such as the Dallas convention center. I would also now be hopeful that since this case is being handled by the City Attorney's Office, we can collectively find a path to resolution."

Interim City Attorney Chris Caso, who was in the council meeting Wednesday, was not immediately available for comment.

Exxxotica is still hoping to return to Dallas, following its 2015 bow at the convention center. City officials, including then-Dallas Police Chief David Brown, told the council no crimes had been committed during the August 2015 event, and that there had been no spike in prostitution. Brown also told the council that his undercover officers hadn't seen any violations of the state's obscenity laws during the convention, where porn stars sold and autographed DVDs and posters, companies peddled underwear and anatomically correct candy, there were light-bondage seminars, and a then-semi-famous somebody named Stormy Daniels spoke about how she broke into the adult-film business.

When Three Expo's owner Jay Handy tried to re-up the convention's contract in 2016, Mayor Mike Rawlings intervened, proposing the resolution that led to the ban. He said in February 2016 it was his "civic obligation to protect the city and our citizens" and that as the city's "chief brand manager ... I do not believe this event is good for our city's brand."

Rawlings found support from New Friends New Life, a nonprofit that works with women and girls who have been trafficked; downtown property owner and oilman Ray Hunt; the convention center's namesake, who is presently serving as President Trump's ambassador to NATO; and a majority of the council.

On Feb. 10, 2016, the council voted to ban Exxxotica — against the advice of its then-City Attorney Warren Ernst, who warned the council that the porn convention didn't violate the city's ordinances regulating sex-related businesses and that a ban because of content would likely violate the First Amendment.

"The mayor and the City Council made clear at the City Council meeting their firm and deliberate decision to exclude Exxxotica 2016 from the Convention Center under any circumstance and regardless of the legal consequences," says the appeals court's ruling. "There is nothing in the evidence to suggest that after so affirmatively barring Exxxotica 2016 from the Convention Center that the City would have allowed one of its officers to lease the facility to Exotica Dallas LLC for the purpose of staging Exxxotica 2016."

Three Expo sued the city two weeks after the ban.

It's up to the judge to determine when Exxxotica returns to a downtown courtroom.

"We're obviously extremely excited for this victory," Handy said Wednesday. "We have said all along that if this case is decided on its merits, we will win. Now we look forward to our day in a Dallas court, and further down the road to bringing Exxxotica back to the good people of Dallas."