|
|
|
Mars Chocolate Heir Loses Natural Gas Drilling Fight
Court Watch |
2008/01/11 09:52
|
An attempt by the reclusive billionaire heir to the Mars chocolate bar fortune to ban drilling for natural gas on his Montana ranch was defeated in a court hearing late on Tuesday.
A judge ruled that Forrest Mars Jr, the former chief executive of the confectionary giant and the son of Forrest Mars Sr, the man credited with inventing M&Ms and the Mars bar, could not prevent Pinnacle Gas Resources from drilling on a 10,000-acre lease it holds for the land beneath Mars's Diamond Cross cattle ranch in south-eastern Montana.
On Monday, Mars employees at the ranch prevented Pinnacle from entering the property when it tried to force its way on to the ranch. Montana law gives companies the right to drill on private land provided they hold a valid lease. The lease expires tomorrow if the company does not commence exploration. Pinnacle said it expected to begin drilling before the end of the week.
"Who the surface owner is should not make any difference, and it didn't today," a Pinnacle attorney, Bryan Wilson, said after the ruling.
In the Diamond Cross case, Pinnacle Gas Resources and another company, Fidelity, have gas and oil leases on the ranch that predate Mars' ownership, according to public records and company officials.
Mars, who is worth an estimated $14bn, owns 82,000 acres along the Tongue river near Montana's border with Wyoming. He is opposed to the drilling because large amounts of underground water are pumped out to access the natural gas. Many farmers view that water as a precious reserve, given the extended drought in the western US.
Mars began buying land in south-eastern Montana in 2003, at the same time that natural gas exploration in the area was booming. He also has residences in Wyoming and Virginia. Since then he has joined several court actions challenging the natural gas industry.
An attorney for Mars, Loren O'Toole, said the objective was not to prevent exploration but to ensure that the water could be returned. "The point is, we can't lose all that water and at the same time have no provision to put it back," O'Toole said.
"Forrest has a lot of money, but he's in the same boat as anybody else," Beth Kaeding, chairwoman of the Northern Plains Resource Council, told the Associated Press news agency.
"If you don't own the mineral rights, it doesn't matter how huge your ranch is, how politically powerful you are, how much money you have. Mineral rights trump surface rights."
Forrest Mars Jr, who was not in court for the hearing, is in his 70s and is one of three children of Forrest Mars Sr, the son of the founder of the company.
Mars is one of the largest family-owned companies in the US, making confectionery, pet food and other products, from Snickers to Whiskas cat food, with $21bn in annual worldwide revenues and an estimated 40,000 employees. The three Mars siblings all featured in last year's top 20 list of the richest Americans, compiled by Forbes magazine.
Pinnacle sued Mars in December after the gas company's employees were told that they would be treated as trespassers if they attempted to enter the ranch.
In separate cases, Mars is suing Pinnacle over plans to develop coal-bed methane on land near his ranch, and is also seeking to block a new railway line in south-eastern Montana that will facilitate the exploitation of the area's coal reserves. |
|
|
|
|
|
Not Guilty Plea in Nev. Sex Tape Case
Court Watch |
2008/01/10 08:55
|
A man accused of raping a little girl after a videotape of the child being assaulted was found in the Nevada desert pleaded not guilty Wednesday, and a judge set a trial date for April. Chester Arthur Stiles, 37, stood next to his appointed lawyers and stared at the floor, saying little during his four-minute arraignment in Clark County District Court. Stiles is accused of sexually assaulting a 2-year-old girl in September 2003, and a 6-year-old girl that December. Authorities say the videotape is of the first attack. Stiles faces 22 felony charges including lewdness with a child under 14, sexual assault with a child under 14 and attempted sexual assault with a child under 14. If convicted, he could face multiple life terms in prison. The judge set trial for April 14. Stiles was returned to jail, where he has been held since his Oct. 15 arrest in what authorities have called protective isolation. Stiles' lawyer Jeff Banks said he intends to seek bail. Stiles became the object of a nationwide manhunt after a Nye County man turned the videotape over to sheriff's investigators in Pahrump, a town some 60 miles west of Las Vegas. Authorities released images from the tape and pleaded for public help to find the girl and her alleged attacker. The girl was found safe with her mother in Las Vegas on Sept. 28. Stiles was arrested after police in the suburb of Henderson stopped him driving a car with no license plates. The man who turned the tape over, 27-year-old Darrin Tuck, remained jailed Wednesday in Pahrump on a probation violation. Tuck said he found the tape in the desert, and his lawyer has said Tuck had no involvement with Stiles. Tuck has pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of possession of child pornography, which carries a possible penalty of one to six years in state prison. No trial date has been set. |
|
|
|
|
|
Guilty plea in Middletown fatal shooting case
Court Watch |
2008/01/09 06:50
|
A 28-year-old Hartford man has accepted a plea deal in a fatal shooting outside a Middletown barbershop in 2006.
Angel DeThomas was one of four people in a car found speeding from the crime scene after Anthony Hall was shot and killed.
Last year he rejected a judge's offer of 40 years in prison if he pleaded guilty to the fatal shooting. DeThomas changed his mind Tuesday as the first day of jury selection in his trial came to a close.
The plea deal means DeThomas will likely receive 34 years in prison when he is sentenced March 4th.
Police say the shooting was in retaliation for the robbery and assault of DeThomas' brother hours earlier. |
|
|
|
|
|
Court Imposes Strict Deadline in Lawsuit
Court Watch |
2008/01/08 02:54
|
The Supreme Court on Tuesday imposed a six-year deadline for suing the federal government in property disputes. The justices ruled 7-2 that a company waited too long to complain in court that the government took the firm's property. The decision came in a suit by the John R. Sand & Gravel Co. of Lapeer County, Mich., which sought compensation for the loss of some of the land it had leased from the property owners. Justice Stephen Breyer said a federal appeals court was correct in raising the deadline question without being asked to do so, and to rule that the company had missed the deadline. In some instances such as lawsuits against the government, the Supreme Court "has often read the time limits ... as more absolute," Breyer wrote. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, saying the majority's decision "has a hollow ring" because the court previously had overturned a precedent that it relied on for Tuesday's decision. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Stevens in dissent. In the 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency began blocking access to portions of the property because the agency was overseeing the cleanup of a landfill under the federal Superfund law. The owners of the 158-acre site in Metamora Township, Mich., had used part of the property for a landfill for tens of thousands of drums of toxic industrial waste. The dispute is among several recent cases regarding whether filing deadlines under various laws prohibit courts from hearing a case or merely lay down rules on how and when to file a claim. At issue in the current case is the power of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act. The act allows lawsuits against the government for claims involving federal contracts and the taking of private property without fair compensation. In the suit involving John R. Sand & Gravel Co., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it had no jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit because of the six-year deadline. |
|
|
|
|
|
Minnesota Supreme Court denies Blom's third appeal
Court Watch |
2008/01/03 08:12
|
For the third time, an appeal by convicted killer Donald Blom has been turned back by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Blom was convicted in the 1999 kidnapping and killing of 19-year-old Moose Lake convenience store clerk Katie Poirier, a case that sparked new sex offender laws in Minnesota. On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected Blom's attempt to gain a new trial, saying his arguments didn't meet a procedural threshold. In his appeal, Blom appears to make five different claims: that the district court did not apply the appropriate standard when reviewing his petition for postconviction relief; that his confession was coerced and, therefore, its admission into evidence violated his constitutional rights; that the district court improperly asserted subject matter jurisdiction over federal charges by leading him to believe that his confession would result in resolution of federal firearm charges and by issuing orders interfering with Blom's access to his federal public defender; that he has been improperly denied the opportunity to develop evidence demonstrating his actual innocence; and that he is being improperly held out of state to prevent him from perfecting his appeal. Carlton County Attorney Thom Pertler prosecuted Blom. "He was tried and convicted by the jury," Pertler said last Thursday night. "I think the Supreme Court recognizes that you give deference to the jury and what they decide on the merits of the case. The issues that he was raising — although difficult to ascertain what they were — were looked at by the Supreme Court and it was determined that the claims he was asserting had been previously asserted so he wasn't entitled to any relief." Blom is serving a life sentence. Now 58, and formerly of Richfield, Minn., Blom was convicted of abducting Poirier from the Moose Lake convenience store where she worked May 26, 1999, strangling her on his nearby vacation property and then burning the body. After his arrest, Blom confessed to strangling the woman. He later recanted the confession, but it was used in his trial. He was convicted of first-degree murder on Aug. 16, 2000, at the conclusion of a 10-week trial in Virginia. The conviction was automatically appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court and affirmed. He filed another appeal last January, which led to Thursday's decision. Blom is serving a life prison sentence without parole for Poirier's murder and a 19-year, seven-month sentence on a federal gun charge. He is being held in a Pennsylvania prison, where his anonymity among inmates can help protect his safety.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Former Ski.com employee expected to plead guilty
Court Watch |
2007/12/31 10:54
|
A former Ski.com salesman plans to plead guilty to reduced counts in a case in which he was accused of tampering with company computers, according to court documents. James M. DiBlasio, 38, of Carmel, Ind., worked for Aspen-based Ski.com from September 2004 to November 2006, court documents said. The company is a travel agency that specializes in ski vacations. An indictment accused him of accessing a Ski.com server in Denver to delete airline reservations and other information. Ski.com's losses were estimated at $5,000. He originally was charged with two counts of unlawful access to protected computers and seven counts of intentional damage to protected computers. A statement filed in U.S. District Court in Denver said DiBlasio planned to plead guilty to one count of each charge. A change of plea hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Man Convicted in Parents' Death Set Free
Court Watch |
2007/12/28 11:43
|
Martin Tankleff walked out of court a free man for the first time in the 17 years since he was convicted of murdering his parents. But his next step was less clear. Prosecutors have not said whether they will retry Tankleff, who was released on $1 million bail Thursday, days after an appeals court overturned his 1990 conviction and ordered a new trial because of new evidence. Relatives paid the bail. "My arrest and conviction was a nightmare, and this is a dream come true," the 36-year-old Tankleff told reporters after a hearing in Riverhead, 75 miles east of Manhattan. Tankleff's attorney, Bruce Barket, said he was awaiting Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota's decision on whether to retry the case. In throwing out Tankleff's 1990 conviction last week, an appeals court said new evidence suggested someone else might have killed Seymour and Arlene Tankleff in their Long Island home. Tankleff had been sentenced to 50 years to life in prison after being convicted in one of the nation's first televised trials. The case raised questions about police interrogation tactics and drew the support of the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people. Innocence Project executive director Barry Scheck said the district attorney should ask for an independent special prosecutor or state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to evaluate whether the case should be reprosecuted. |
|
|
|
|
Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
Law Firm Directory
|
|