My life has been eaten up by some major cases over the past six weeks.
On Tuesday, May 1st, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond upheld a successful judgment we obtained in U.S. District Court, Alexandria. The case dealt with the following facts: our client bought property for $1.7M in the “Creighton Farms” community in Loudoun County, expecting it to be a Ritz-Carlton planned community. A couple years later, Ritz pulled out despite its statements otherwise. After some preliminary wrangling, we filed a lawsuit alleging a violation of the Interstate Land Sales Act, which requires certain disclosures in the marketing and sale of undeveloped lots, and asked for rescission of the land sale.
In 2010, the U.S. District Court awarded our client rescission based on the ILSA violations, which it deeme material. The was appealed to the Fourth Circuit, as a case of first impression on the “right of rescission” in ILSA cases. On Tuesday, the Court affirmed by a 2-1 vote. I’ll skip the details, except to say that we won.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Continental Divide ….
For the past seven years, I’ve been part of a team representing Spring Canyon Energy in its case against PacifiCorp, the owner of Rocky Mountain Power. The case arises from the theft of trade secrets related to developing a gas-fired, air-cooled 500 megawatt power plant in the desert of central Utah. The plant was built by PacifiCorp in 2005 at a cost of $345M, after it had spent months studying our client’s plans and data. We filed suit.
After years of discovery, a summary dismissal in 2007, and a successful appeal in 2010, our trade secrets case is now pending before a Salt Lake City jury, who will determine liability and set damages. A lot is at stake. We expect a result by mid-May. Until that time, I’m logging the frequent flyer miles.
