Real estate developer David Nicklies has filed a lawsuit challenging the Louisville-Jefferson County merger of 2003 as a violation of the Kentucky Constitution and is seeking to have it dissolved.

Nicklies, a prominent Louisville businessman, Republican donor and longtime critic of Jefferson County Public Schools leadership, filed the complaint in Jefferson Circuit Court on Monday.

In 2000, the Kentucky General Assembly passed a law allowing city-county mergers in “first class” cities, of which Louisville was and remains the only one in the state. Jefferson County voted to approve the merger later that year, with it going into effect in 2003.

The complaint of Nicklies argues the 2000 law allowing the merger constituted “special legislation” that is prohibited by Section 59 and 60 of the

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