Range Wins Appeal In Suit Against Texas Landowners
By Tom Korosec – Aug 24, 2012 11:00 PM CT
There is no way to tell what happened with this ruling by reading the article but what follows, with a little help from a friend, is my take.
The ruling is purely a procedural ruling and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. The appeals court ruled that it does not have the jurisdiction to hear an interim or interlocutory appeal because the case is not final at the trial court level. The appeal was only for the SLAPP ruling.
If there is a writ of mandamus, which is the thing I could not afford after Loftin ruled on my hearing,*Edit then the court of appeals can rule on just the piece of the case that is under appeal.
In this case, the court of appeals is treating it as a mandamus so they are still considering the merits of the case.
“I’m somewhat optimistic the court will consider our case at greater length,” Brent Rosenthal, a lawyer for the Lipskys, said in a phone interview. He said the appeals court will need to find “a clear abuse of discretion that cannot be rectified on appeal” to grant the writ of mandamus.
The Range attorneys say there was no “clear abuse of discretion.”
This reporter found a couple so I’m thinking the court of appeals might also.
It’s premature to declare victory.
Edit*It’s not exactly true that I could not afford the mandamus. At the time, Loftin was still the judge on the case. If the appeals court found that his ruling at my hearing was not a good ruling, they would return the case to him. In a nutshell: I would spend about $5K to be right back before a judge who obviously was not impartial. Throwing $5K away did not seem like a wise decision.
For more informaiton, see Fight Over Fracking and Flaming Water in Parker County Hits Snag in Appeals Court
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” is the perfect explanation that defines Range Resources.
What WE need to understand is that David Poole and Company will spend tens of thousands of dollars to protect the tens of millions yet to be had.
Our health, our property, our children, our air and water, our way of life is irrelevant to them, we are merely a nuisance and an inconvenience to them that they are forced to tolerate as part of their unending greed, always at someone else’s costs.
the tx observer http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/06/epa-bashing_judge_in_high-prof.php
“…one of the messiest, most vengeful fracking contamination cases we’ve ever heard of”
nice reputation poole has brought to rr.
It could be argued by some that some of the reporting done on this blog site is less than objective. Perhaps so, perhaps not, reasonable people may fall on both sides of the issue. But it is hard to argue that this blog does not serve the purposes of journalistic reporting in an era when most of the traditional media outlets have traded reporting for fluff and eyeballs for substance. I think that it was Judge Loftin’s argument that reportage on “Blue Daze” did not meet the standards of traditional reporting.
Let me see, so in order to meet the standards of traditional reporting, one would need to do the following:
+ Be white.
+ Have perfectly coiffed hair.
+ Wear short skirts.
+ Show plenty of leg, whilst keeping your legs crossed (always tease the “money shot” to keep the eyeballs watching).
+ Wear tons of makeup.
+ Be young and conventionally pretty.
+ Have a constantly morphing background to accommodate those with short attention spans.
+ Ignore science and facts.
+ Rely on faith and innuendo.
+ Claim to be “fair and balanced.”
+ Overtly and covertly beat the racist drum.
+ Repeat half-truths, at best, over and over in the hope that by doing so they’ll be perceived as whole-truths.
+ Selectively edit audio and video as needed to meet the approved corporate narrative.
So, in my humble opinion, the above bullet points illustrate the current state of much of today’s traditional news outlets. It is in this context that Judge Loftin ruled that “Blue Daze” reportage was not that of a traditional journalistic nature.
Reality check: given the nature of traditional “journalistic” outlets these days (cross your legs baby, yeah that’s right, just like Sharon Stone, yeah cross ‘em again, bat your eyes some more sweetie, pout those lips baby, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah), blogs are about the only forms of “journalistic” reporting still covering any side of a controversial issue.
Hey judiciary, wake up! The times, they are a-changin’, and y’all need to get with the program. That is, unless you’re the ones watching the traditional news outlet waitin’ for that “money shot.”