A Porterdale couple has filed a complaint, accusing city councilman Robert Foxworth of battery after a verbal - and some say physical - altercation occurred at Porterdale City Hall Tuesday.

It all started with a business card. According to the complaint filed by Dawn Taylor, she and her husband Skylar and the couple's 13-year-old son were in city hall to speak with a clerk about an issue on their tax bill when Foxworth approached her.

Both Dawn and Foxworth agree that he offered her one of his cards and she refused to take it. They also both agree that after she refused to give Foxworth her name or tell him where she lived, he said that he would find out.

Dawn's statement says that when Foxworth said he would find out, her husband approached the councilman and accused him of threatening his wife.

"You cannot threaten her, nor can you dig through her private life just because you're a councilman," Skylar said to Foxworth, according to his wife's statement. To which Foxworth allegedly replied "I'll find out who she is when I walk the streets to get votes."

This statement jives with what Foxworth said happened as well. Although he said his statement was taken the wrong way and he never said anything in a threatening manner to Dawn Taylor.

"All I was trying to do was talk with them and they copped an attitude quick," said Foxworth. "When I said I'll find out where ya'll live I meant hopefully I will see you campaigning... I did not threaten anyone - I don't do that."

According to Foxworth he tried to leave city hall and Skylar kept "standing in front of me and cussing me."

"I finally got around him to get out the door and he said ‘you're going to die and go to Hell and meet your mother," said Foxworth, whose mother is currently battling lung cancer.

"When he said that I turned around and said ‘you're a piece of s***,'" admitted Foxworth, who said the comment about his mother triggered his temper. "When you talk about someone's mother like that, it crosses the line," he said, tearing up.

Dawn's statement alleges that what angered Foxworth was not a comment about his mother, but when her husband called him a "bad councilman."

However, both Foxworth and the Taylors concur that the argument continued outside city hall by Foxworth's truck. According to Dawn, Foxworth told her husband that to "go to Hell and that his wife will lead the way and that his mother and sister will be there."

Both agree that the men were nearly nose to nose at this point, with Foxworth accusing Skylar of getting in his face and vice versa.

"Mr. Foxworth started telling my husband repeatedly that ‘he should be really glad that they were where they were' and I yelled twice to everyone in the building to call the police and they didn't," reads Dawn's statement.

"I told him to get away from me and he said no," said Foxworth. "...I have the right by law to get you out of my personal space and I didn't do that. I was not going to get hit because if he had hit me I was going to defend myself."

Foxworth alleges that Skylar pushed his truck door closed when he tried to get in his vehicle and leave, slamming it onto his arm. Dawn said that Foxworth got into his truck and slammed his door into her husband, knocking him back.

The police report indicates that the Taylors told officers that Skylar has "12 slipped disks from a previous car wreck and is now in a lot of pain from the strike," and that as Foxworth drove away he continued to yell profanities out of his window at them. Dawn's statement says that he was also "pointing at us and laughing," - though the police report does not say this.

Foxworth said that he did yell out his window at the couple, but that he said he was going to pray for them.

"I absolutely deny the accusations," said Foxworth. "I did not hurt that man... The city manager came out and told the guy to calm down and I opened the door and got into my truck and he screamed ‘he hit me with his door!'"

The he said/she said case will be heard by a Magistrate Court judge Wednesday. The judge will decide if the accusation of battery holds up or is dismissed.