St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Lawsuit Dismissed: What Happened

The St. Louis Park basketball hoop lawsuit was dismissed on May 20, 2025, when a Hennepin County District Court judge threw out both Julia Ramos’s underlying case against the Moeding family and the City of St. Louis Park and her motion for a temporary injunction that would have barred the Moeding children from playing on their own driveway.¹² The hoop remains on the Moedings’ driveway.

How the Dispute Started

Ross and Lilly Moeding had lived in their St. Louis Park home for roughly eleven years when Fred and Julia Ramos moved in next door. In the summer of 2024, Julia Ramos reported the Moedings’ basketball hoop to the city, saying it sat too close to the property line. A city inspection found the hoop was about six inches over the line. The Moedings moved it to five feet from the boundary and the city signed off on the new location.³

Ramos kept pushing. She took the issue to the St. Louis Park Board of Zoning Appeals and then the City Council, arguing the setup was a “sport court” under the zoning code rather than a residential basketball hoop. A sport court would have required three additional feet of surface behind the hoop plus the five-foot property-line buffer, for a total of eight feet. Both bodies ruled against her.³

The Lawsuit

In February 2025, Ramos filed a civil suit in Hennepin County District Court against the Moedings and the City of St. Louis Park.⁴ A former attorney, she represented herself.⁵

The complaint argued the city had misapplied its own zoning ordinance by refusing to treat the hoop as a sport court. Ramos also raised concerns about the “quiet enjoyment” of her property, safety risks from children darting into her driveway after loose balls, and potential liability if she struck a child while backing out of her garage.³ In a court filing she wrote: “I have not complained about the noise anywhere else or any other basketball hoops in the neighborhood. I am complaining about this particular one because its immediately in front of my door. My kitchen window is right there. I have to watch them. I don’t want to have to watch them.”⁶

In late April 2025, Ramos filed a separate motion for a temporary injunction to stop the Moeding children from using the hoop while the case was pending, citing safety concerns tied to a planned months-long construction project at the Ramos home.⁴⁷

What the City Did

St. Louis Park held throughout that the Moedings’ hoop complied with zoning and building codes.⁸⁹¹⁰

On May 5, 2025, city attorney Jared Shepherd filed a memorandum arguing the amendment had rendered the suit moot and that the injunction motion “has no legal basis to move forward.”⁷ The city’s filings also said the injunction request “drastically exceeds the scope of this lawsuit” and that the court’s job was to decide “the proper location of a common residential amenity, a basketball hoop; it will not dictate the driveway play of children.”⁸

The Dismissal

The Hennepin County judge dismissed both the injunction motion and the underlying lawsuit on Tuesday, May 20, 2025.¹² The ruling tracked the city’s position that the hoop did not violate zoning rules, especially after the March 2025 ordinance clarifying that a driveway is not a sport court.

Available reporting does not say whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice, and the judge’s written reasoning had not been published as of the most recent coverage. The reporting also does not indicate whether sanctions or attorney fees were addressed.¹¹

What Happened After

The hoop stayed where it was. One day before the dismissal, on May 19, 2025, Ramos served the Moedings with a cease-and-desist letter threatening a defamation suit over what the Ramoses called “character assassination” in the media. The Moedings described it as an attempt to “scare us into silence.”² As of the last available reporting, no defamation suit had been filed, though the Moedings said they expected one.¹

The family’s legal costs drew public attention well before the dismissal. Lilly Moeding wrote on a GoFundMe campaign that both Ramos neighbors held law degrees and could litigate without the fees the Moedings faced; the family said it spent $3,300 just responding to the initial filings. The campaign passed its $24,000 goal and continued collecting, and Moeding said surplus funds would go to 612 Promise, a Minneapolis nonprofit that runs sports programming for disadvantaged youth.¹²⁴ Lilly Moeding told the Star Tribune: “We are not backing down because we are not doing anything wrong.”¹

1
Star Tribune. Lawsuit Against St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Gets Dismissed
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FOX 9. St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Moeding Family Says Lawsuit Dismissed
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Kansas City Star. St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Dispute
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CBS Minnesota. St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Lawsuit
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Star Tribune. St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Lawsuit Neighbor
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FOX 9. Basketball Hoop Controversy Family Accuses Neighbor Abusing Legal Process
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Red Lake Nation News. St. Louis Park Neighbor Lawsuit Against Family Basketball Hoop Is Moot
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FOX 9. St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Controversy Lawsuit
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KARE 11. St. Louis Park Asks Judge to Throw Out Woman Lawsuit Over Basketball Hoop Location
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City of St. Louis Park. Zoning Code
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CBS Minnesota. St. Louis Park Basketball Hoop Lawsuit Dismissed
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GoFundMe. Sued for a Basketball Hoop — Help Us Stand Up for Our Family