Star Market on Bailey Cove

Star Market on Bailey Cove Road. (AL.com file photo)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- A Madison County judge Friday rejected a developer's request to toss a lawsuit filed in an ongoing eviction dispute over the Star Market property on Bailey Cove Road.

Circuit Judge Chris Comer issued an order Friday afternoon denying a motion for summary judgment filed on behalf of James R. Hays and John W. Hays. The Hayses contend the owners of Star Market failed to renew their lease for the property at the end of 2012 and they want to evict Star from the property at 9020 Bailey Cove Road.

Comer held a hearing on the summary judgment motion and related motions Thursday. He rejected a request to grant summary judgment and also rejected the Hayses requests for default judgment and sanctions against the plaintiffs.

The case is set for a bench trial beginning June 30.

Attorneys for Star Market contend a lease renewal notice for five years was sent to the Hayses in the fall of 2012 and that Star paid rent into 2013 for four months before hearing anything about a failure to renew the lease.

In court filings Star said it received a notice from John Hays on April 29 saying Star needed to vacate the property at the end of May. The Hayses attorneys say Star managed to send the rent checks to the correct address every month, but sent the renewal notice to an address they hadn't used in several years. The failure to properly renew the lease made it void under the law, the defendants claim.

Buts Star's attorneys say the issue was not a question of a failed renewal notice, but rather a possible new suitor for the property.

" ... they only began to assert their supposed non-receipt of the notice after learning of an opportunity to sell the leased property to Wal-Mart - so long as it was no longer encumbered by the lease," Star's attorneys argue in court filings.

Star filed the lawsuit last June seeking to block the eviction and to have the lease recognized as valid.