Updated at 8:06 p.m. Saturday: Revised to add details from a Facebook post by Mayor George Fuller.

A Collin County judge will likely strike down McKinney’s shelter-in-place order Monday, after a local real estate agent sued Mayor George Fuller, saying the order was too restrictive.

Derek Baker, whose work is designated “essential” under local and county coronavirus orders, filed the lawsuit and a restraining order against Fuller on Friday. It would stop officials from enforcing the McKinney shelter-in-place order that Fuller signed Wednesday. Fuller and Baker both said Friday the judge planned to rule against the city.

Fuller said the city would appeal the decision if Collin County District Judge Jill Willis chooses to nullify McKinney’s order.

McKinney Mayor George Fuller. (February 2020) (Jason Janik / Special Contributor)

The McKinney order, the suit claims, contradicts a countywide order issued Tuesday by Collin County Judge Chris Hill. In the county order, Hill proclaimed that “all workers are essential,” markedly more lenient language than found in orders issued by Dallas County and elsewhere.

After Hill’s order was announced, Fuller drafted a separate order that includes more stringent shelter-in-place guidelines for his city. The document declares that many McKinney businesses are “not essential” and must close.

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Baker’s suits says McKinney’s order should be declared invalid because it is “in excess of and directly conflicts with several overriding provisions” of Hill’s order. State law requires the county order to stand when in conflict with a mayoral order, Baker contends.

“That looks pretty straightforward to me,” Baker said. “Whether I think he was right is not the point.”

Fuller disagreed with Baker in a Facebook post on Saturday in which he described the lawsuit as “baseless.”

“So residents know the facts, the law being cited as giving the County governance over a City when there is a conflict between two orders, is 418.108,”Fuller said on Facebook. “This Law ONLY pertains to governance when conflict exists concerning evacuation, and ingress and egress following a natural disaster.”

Fuller included the text of the law in his post.

Baker claimed he had sustained financial damage in his work as a real estate agent because of Fuller’s order. The suit states that his work had been deemed not essential because real estate agents are not explicitly mentioned in the order.

Fuller said Friday afternoon that Baker’s business can stay in operation.

“It’s not an easy situation. I’m a small business owner,” Fuller said. “And my business is not essential, but his is.”

According to the Collin County Association of Realtors, where Fuller directed questions, both the McKinney and county orders allow real estate agents to remain in operation because they “supply other essential businesses with support,” per the city order. McKinney’s order, according to the association’s website, “highly discourages showings in person with a client, only virtual. This is in-kind with CCAR’s best practices.”

Baker said Friday he didn’t see real estate agents listed in McKinney’s “essential” businesses. He said he has taken precautions while showing homes to his clients, including wearing a mask and sanitizing his hands.

He said he filed the lawsuit not only for his own business, but also for McKinney residents who have lost jobs because of the shelter-in-place order.

“Perhaps I’m carved out, but what about the couple thousand other people who are out of work?” Baker said. “There’s a gulf of difference between a government telling you you can’t go to work and you deciding not to go to work.”

Medical experts say shelter-in-place orders like the ones in McKinney and Dallas help slow the spread of the virus. Although people are encouraged to follow restrictions for social distancing, many in North Texas ignored those suggestions before stricter orders were issued.

Fuller said he stands by the order as a necessary step to protect the city.

“There are several things at stake with this case. First and foremost, the health and wellbeing of our community," he said in his Facebook post. “I will fight for that to the Supreme Court. Second, is if this law can be applied in broadstroke form, outside the specific intent prescribed, then where will it end?”

The mayor said Friday that a close friend had died of COVID-19 this week and that he is awaiting the result of testing for his daughter, who lives in Dallas. He said this week has been like living in a dream.

“Not my dream,” he said. “But it is a dream.”