Second Judicial District of Iowa Magistrate Tom Hillers has denied the motion to reconsider his ruling in the Marshalltown Mall case.

The City of Marshalltown took the Marshalltown Development Group, the owner of the mall, to court for various fire code violations. On July 19, a short trial was held for the matter, without the presence of the defendant or representing attorney Jeff Hazen. Hillers found the owners in violation of the codes, fined them $6,500 and ordered the problems fixed within 30 days or be found in contempt of court.

Hazen filed the motion to reconsider the ruling because of the absence during the trial. He had requested a continuance due to illness, which was the reason for the absence. Unfortunately for the defense, that request was filed one hour before the start of the fire code violation trial.

In the denial, Hillers explained the accepted practice of requesting a continuance for a trial. He wrote that attorneys should first contact the opposing attorney to see if he or she will resist a continuance. Afterward, a motion should then be filed to continue with notes of whether or not there will be resistance. If the trial is approaching without a ruling on the continuance, the attorney should email the judge or call opposing counsel to check on the status.

Hillers wrote that occasionally, there are only hours or minutes before trial when an unexpected situation occurs. In those cases, the almost universal practice is for counsel to send another attorney to the courthouse, or to call the court to discuss the matter with the judge and opposing counsel.

“Filing a motion to continue, without speaking to the judge and opposing counsel, and then not appearing in person is outside of the accepted practice in all of our judicial districts in Iowa,” he wrote.

The magistrate noted that the previously mentioned illness was not unexpected, and Hazen had called in sick for most of his hearings during the week of July 15. Hillers wrote the attorney should have been communicating with the city’s attorney the day before the trial to discuss the possibility of a continuance, and that the request should have been filed that week.

“Assuming for the sake of argument that counsel had fully recovered on Thursday, but woke up bedstricken on Friday morning, counsel was still well aware of the fact that calling the clerk and filing a last minute motion was well outside of the accepted practice for seeking a continuance of a trial on the morning of trial,” the denial stated.

Hillers suggested that the attorneys Hazen works with could have walked to the courthouse or called him to discuss the matter. He wrote the court balanced the prejudice of each party in favor of the opponent, addressed the continuance request and then proceeded.

“All of the foregoing is amplified by the nature of this case,” he wrote. “One of the largest commercial structures in our jurisdiction is currently sitting mostly vacant without the proper systems in place to prevent fire conflagration.”

Marshalltown Fire Marshal Josh Warnell said none of the fire code violations have been fixed yet. The violations include ill-maintained equipment to ensure safety of building occupants, fire protection and life safety systems not being installed or maintained and fire detection and extinguishing systems were not operative.

The violations stem from the Marshalltown Development Group, a holding company for the New York-based Kohan Retail Investment Group owned by Mike Kohan, neglecting to pay its electric bill. In November of 2023, electricity was shut off in the main areas of the mall, such as the hallways, bathrooms and parking lot, which also shut off sprinkler systems. The bill still has not been paid.

The United States federal court system also indicates that Kohan, known by aliases Mike Kohen and Mehran Kohansieh, is an owner of North Park Realty Management, which is a defendant in the Sakhe and North Park Realty Management case in the New Jersey Bankruptcy Court. The case was filed in June 2016 and has a hearing set for Aug. 20 in Newark, NJ.

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Contact Lana Bradstream

at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.