This Thursday, the mayor of the town of Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d’Or, Jean-Marie Hombert, had leaflets distributed to his constituents. The elected official has left a letter in the mailboxes of the inhabitants of the commune, in which he announces that he is leaving his post. The latter calls into question the cultural institution of the Abode of Chaos, open since 1999 and which has caused ink to flow since its beginnings.
The former mayor deplores, in the columns of Progrès, the cost of the fight against Thierry Ehrmann and his particularly conspicuous museum in this village of Pierres Dorées: “his legal aggressiveness resulted in new exorbitant facts […] and have created differences within our municipal council”. In total, 26,000 euros in legal costs would have been paid by the municipality, whose concerns have been known to all for many years.
Thierry Ehrmann, in a long press release, for his part provided important details, and in particular “the suicidal act of the commune” end of 2021: “in this new procedure, the mayor requested, among other things, an expert report under article 145 of the CPC, for the purpose of evaluating the copyrights of the 6,300 works making up the Corpus called the Abode of Chaos, as well as a Fixed-day correctional citation for concealment of copyright and property rights with 100,000 euros per offense and per day”.
Enough to prove Thierry Ehrmann right who explains: “it should be noted the fatal act for the municipality which after 23 years of proceedings for so-called infringements of the Town Planning Code by denying any artistic form, suddenly begins to recognize, by its request for an expertise of the patrimonial rights by Thierry Ehrmann, arguing by itself that the Demeure du Chaos is world famous and that it is indeed made up of 6,300 works (sculptures, paintings, monumental installations, land art, street art)”.
Thus, the business manager indicates that the President of the Lyon Judicial Court, by order of February 7, 2022, rejected all the requests of the Municipality, including that relating to the request for an expert report. He also recalled the authority of res judicata of the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Grenoble of December 16, 2008 with regard to SCI VHI, a party to the procedure where the Court of Appeal of Grenoble excluded from any reclamation sentence.
“In the same judgment, the municipality of Saint-Romain-Au-Mont-d’Or was ordered to pay the costs to be paid to each of the companies VHI, 3S, l’Organe, Artmarket.com and GroupeServer the sum of 800 euros in application of the provisions of article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure, i.e. the total sum of 4,000 euros” continues Thierry Ehrmann. The City would have appealed this decision which would weigh down its finances a little more.
In response, the boss of the House of Chaos filed a complaint against the municipality: “the harassing, abusive, quarrelsome and deeply dishonest accumulation of this last procedure brought by the Commune against these 5 companies was the subject of a criminal complaint filed by Mr. Ehrmann with the Public Prosecutor for “for fraud in the judgment, moral harassment, and abuse of weakness, misdemeanor””.
New legal battles are therefore to come. But they will now take place without Jean-Marie Hombert.
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