GREELEY — A Weld County District Court choose has denied the North Weld County Drinking water District’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a developer in excess of the district’s faucet moratorium.
Judge Todd L. Taylor denied the motion June 15, letting a lawsuit by Eagle Look at Farms LLC to progress.
“Viewing the plaintiff’s allegations in the mild most favorable to the plaintiff, the courtroom denies the motion to dismiss for the explanations articulated in the plaintiff’s reaction,” the decide wrote in his buy.
Greeley-based Eagle View Farms sued the Lucerne-based North Weld County H2o District in February, alleging violations of a Drinking water Support Arrangement by way of which North Weld agreed to offer water provider through taps for a development west of Lucerne and north of Greeley.
The task, positioned north of Seeley Lake at Colorado Highway 392 and Weld County Highway 35, incorporates 24 plenty. But growth at the site was halted thanks to a tap moratorium imposed by the h2o district very last fall.
The district imposed a moratorium on new taps in September, citing uncertainty more than 1041 regulatory processes in Fort Collins and Larimer County around its prepared NEWT III pipeline extending from North Timberline Road in Fort Collins 5.3 miles east into Larimer County.
North Weld also has acknowledged ability challenges stemming from the large amount of household progress in the location, alongside with improved need from commercial buyers, such as dairies.
North Weld in March submitted a movement to dismiss the scenario, arguing that the developer knew about the moratorium when it contracted to offer a whole lot in the Eagle Check out Farms advancement.
“While the moratorium was in area, and with complete information of the imposition of the moratorium, the developer apparently entered into a agreement with a prospective customer to provide one of the lots topic to the WSA,” lawyers for the North Weld County Drinking water District said in the court submitting.
Eagle Watch responded that “no authorized or factual basis” existed to dismiss the scenario.
“… District designed a assure to developer to supply faucets pursuant to the WSA,” Eagle View’s lawyers said in the movement to dismiss. “Developer entirely done its individual obligations under the WSA. But district refused to deliver taps. Thus, based mostly on main ideas of Colorado deal legislation, developer can rightly go after a remedy of specific effectiveness against district for its failure to deliver faucets as promised beneath the WSA.”
North Weld, in an April 15 filing, countered that letters sent by the district in December 2021 “do not condition the district will never give faucets nor do they state the district by no means intends to present taps” and do not constitute a “repudiation” of the WSA.
“The intent of the moratorium … was to address the actuality of lowered h2o in North Weld county,” North Weld’s reaction ongoing. “Essentially, the district decided the commitment of drinking water expert services to new developments was not feasible centered on latest h2o concentrations, and h2o have to be conserved for currently existing establishments.”
North Weld’s attorneys argued that Eagle View’s claims “fail to point out a claim for aid and lack standing.”
But the judge’s ruling implies that the case can progress.
Ken Skogg, an attorney with Kutak Rock LLP representing Eagle View, praised the ruling.
“We appreciate the judge’s ruling, which clears the way for us to commence to trial and instantly begin our detailed legal discovery, like depositions of North Weld, in more aid of Eagle Watch Farm’s statements for damages and other relief,” Skogg claimed in a geared up assertion. “We will observe the points where ever they guide us. Based on the data we have already collected as perfectly as contacts and info from other affected events, we feel our first claims could be the suggestion of the iceberg in North Weld’s failure to adequately exercise its fiduciary responsibilities to the district and its patrons, alongside with the breach of its contractual obligations to my consumer.”
An lawyer with Spencer Fane LLP, symbolizing North Weld, declined to remark on the circumstance.
The lawsuit is envisioned to go to trial in 2023.The Weld County District Courtroom scenario, Eagle Look at Farms LLC v. North Weld County Drinking water District, is 2022CV30072.
