Latest on the Naquin Delaying Lawsuit

Both the Advocate and the Advertiser have brief stories describing yesterday’s hearing of Naquin lawsuit. (Matthew Eastin was allowed to withdraw.) Both describe the the hearing and recount remarks by Judge Saunders to the effect that attorneys should stick to the main legal points of the case.

This is a delaying tactic and a legal tool being used to further the interests of BellSouth/AT&T and Cox. We still do not know who Elizabeth Naquin and is, who recruited her, and what she hopes to gain by frustrating the desires of the community in which she lives.

Law at this level is a matter of interpretation–though lawyers and judges seldom like to discuss it in these terms with laymen, no law simply “lays down the law” plainly and cleanly. Laws conflict in ways large and small and the terms they use are ambiguous. This case is mess because the law is a mess. It was written by a committee, and what’s more the committee didn’t agree on the purposes of the law, much less the mere technical matter of implementation which the case pretends to be about. The judges would no doubt like the case to be about the narrowest possible technical or even “hypertechnical” question. –The previous 3rd court panel, wrongly in my opinion, seized on an obscure legal meaning of the word “pledge” to decide the case. There is no reason to think the legislators understood that granting the community the right to “pledge” the assets of the utility company (which is the way the law reads) to mean the legal equivalent of “no pledge unless you are going broke” –which is the way the court decided the matter.

Judge Saunders insistence that the case should be about broader questions of law is, I hope, a good sign. The clearly stated purpose of the law is to enable local governments to go into the telecom business. To interpret the (un)Fair Act in the way the plaintiff does is attempt to make the business impossible. The law very clearly anticipates market rate loans. Should the court pull back and look at the whole purpose and tone of the law and what the law itself declares is its goal to be they will dismiss the suit .. and we can get on with the business of providing what the people voted for.

“Fiber plaintiff wants out” Update

From the Advertiser:

Eastin filed a motion with the Third Circuit Court of Appeal in Lake Charles asking that he be dismissed as a plaintiff, said City-Parish Attorney Pat Ottinger…

“I don’t know the reasons he got out,” City-Parish President Joey Durel said of Eastin. “Whatever his reasons, he was able to finally tell an attorney he doesn’t want to be part of something that is bad for his community.”

Eastin’s withdrawal from the appeal to the Third Circuit does not negate that appeal, according to the motion filed by attorneys Patrick Pendley and Stan Baudin of Plaquemine and Andre Laplace and Christopher Shows of Baton Rouge.

That pretty much tells the story. Eastin has withdrawn, the lawsuit goes on.

The hearing on the Naquin-Eastin lawsuit will be held tomorrow and a decision rendered within the week.

Update: Though it’s not online the Advocate also has a brief story on Eastin dropping out of the suit. Blanchard, the Advocate reporter, exchanged emails with Eastin’s attorney who says:

“He asked us to dismiss him from the suit for personal reasons.”

(I wrote briefly on this yesterday and linked to a pdf of the motion to voluntarily dismiss there.)

Eastin Resigns Suit!!

The word is out that Matthew Eastin has resigned from Pendley lawfirms’ class action lawsuit.

Here’s the way his request to resign the suit is worded in the motion to dismiss.

Appellant Mathew B. Eastin prays that his Motion to Voluntarily Dismiss Appeal, at his cost, be granted, and that the Court strike his name from the record.

Translanted from the legalese: Get me out of this and, please, take my name off this thing.

It’s now down to Elizabeth Naquin…the mystery woman who moved here from Florida. It’s been surprisingly hard for the incumbents to find agents to do their work in this town. Most folks, no matter what their vote on the fiber referendum, aren’t going to act to frustrate the decision of their community. It’s still a small town in that respect.

That seems like a good thing to me. It’s cost us all too much already.

Momentum Shifts to the Munis

A story found at Yahoo today, Internet Providers And Their Lobbyists Losing Momentum Vs. City Wi-Fi Plans,
tells this year’s tale incumbent-sponsored attempts to restrict or ban municipal broadband networks. The wave appears to have crested:

In 2005, 11 states agreed with the phone and cable firms, and passed laws that made it tougher for cities to float broadband initiatives. Lawmakers aimed to prevent serious competition and stop the nascent muni Wi-Fi movement. The phone and cable firms incumbents also sued to stop city network rollouts…

“In 2005, there was a strong wind in state legislatures to restrict the municipalities, but we have not seen anything like that this year,” said John Logan, a telecom attorney who worked for Federal Communications Commission for most of the 1990s.

No such state, or federal, laws have been enacted this year. A few have been proposed, but were defeated. The general mood in Congress is to let cities do what they want, Logan says. Bills being crafted in Congress would overturn restrictions states put on muni Wi-Fi, he says. “People are saying this is a good idea,” Logan said. “The technology is so powerful that it’s winning the day.”

Of course, this year beating down municipalities over the provision of utility broadband, video, and voice wasn’t the top priority for the teleco companies. Instead, beating down the municipalities over the issue franchise fees and build-out provisions was the order of the day. The telecos had pretty good success with that cause de jour. (Even if Governor Blanco did have to come to our rescue.) So don’t count the Teleco’s out. They are still getting much of what they ask for. On the other hand, the last two years they have spent a lot of political capital, particularly that of the baby bells. Most municipalities are now suspicious of any state activity by telecos that impinge on local concerns–and they’ve slowly gotten active at the state level. Some have even begun to lobby at the federal level. Once in play the heft of municipal organizations should not be underestimated.
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Lagniappe quote on the silliness of incumbents claiming to be looking out for the interests of the public in their defense of their monopolies:

And it’s not as if industry opposes government intervention in other private-sector areas, others note.

“The last time I checked, I didn’t see them screaming about tax dollars being used to build football stadiums,” said Jonathan Baltuch, president of the consulting firm MRI.

“LUS suit appeal hearing Thursday”

The Advocate today runs a story that very cleanly lays out the Naquin-Eastin case that has held up the issuance of Lafayette’s fiber bonds. The story makes it clear that the filing is dependent on BellSouth’s legal expertise. The rest of the story seems to be that key parts of the plantiff’s case were taken from BellSouth and included in a supplemental filing that was illegally late.

Those who have closely followed the case will recall that BellSouth posted a midnight fax on the last day to challenge the council ordinance defining the bond sale. BellSouth used that filing to force Lafayette to withdraw its bills in the last session that would have repealed the (un)Fair Competition Act that is the basis of these lawsuits. That fax was apparently the basis of the challengers “supplemental filing”–or rather was the supplemental filing.

This is the case that was thrown out of Rubin’s court; that is why it is being appealed to state level currently. Rubin refused to hear part of their case on the grounds that those parts weren’t filled before the deadline. Presumeably this is the “supplemental” portion that the Plaquimines lawyers are trying to get into the case now.

From the story:

In a response to the plaintiffs’ appeal, LUS attorneys said most of Naquin and Eastin’s arguments should be thrown out because they were filed too late — and were copied “word for word” from a similar challenge filed by BellSouth but eventually dropped.

The state’s bond validation statute, which lays out the specific way plaintiffs must challenge bonds, requires plaintiffs to file their suits within a certain time limit and to publish their challenge in the newspaper.

The plaintiffs, after that deadline passed, filed with the district court a “supplemental” filing that LUS argues was simply a “cut and paste” of the dropped BellSouth suit…

The case will be heard by 3rd Circuit Court Judges Billy Ezell of Lake Charles, John Saunders of Ville Platte and Michael Sullivan of Lafayette.

It should all be interesting. It could all be over as soon as Thursday.