On Monday 06 July 2015 lawyers with the Maine office of the Attorney General on behalf of Maine DEP filed a motion to dismiss All of the Independent claims in the petition and All Claims raised by Petitioner Pleasant Pond Mill LLC (PPM). This leaves claims raised by Aquafortis Associates LLC (AQF) as the only claims the State feels are worthy of the court’s time (i.e., counts I-V of the original appeal dated February 26, 2014). This motion to dismiss was made in response to the Court’s Procedural Order dated 02 June 2015 which gave the State 5 weeks to file their motion. The deadline to file was July 7th. The plaintiffs have 5 weeks to respond to the State’s motion.
While not a routine procedure, it is still relatively common for a respondent (in this case the State, representing DEP) to file a motion to dismiss part or all of a petition they feel is irrelevant, frivolous or outside the jurisdiction of the court and not worthy of appeal, especially when the plaintiff (in this case, PPM and AQF) has filed a petition that includes Heaven and Earth, including the kitchen sink. So that’s what this filing by the State is intended to do: get rid of the counts they feel are irrelevant and frivolous so the Court doesn’t waste its time on matters that aren’t relevant to the case.
The cover letter including draft order and a hearing request provides a nice summary of the motion; most people will be content reading that. The motion to dismiss itself is a bit harder to chew through:
Clary Lake Association counsel Ron Kreisman feels the State did a good job with their pleading. If the Court dismisses the counts cited in the State’s motion, that will leave the remaining counts I-V brought by AQF. For those of you who are trying to follow along, their on pages 11 through 17 of the original appeal.