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Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Not yet begun to fight

The latest ruling on the long-drawn-out Trade Mart litigation came down today. The appeals court judge sided with the city and Four Seasons.
A Louisiana appeal court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit over the city's lease of the World Trade Center building to a Four Seasons developer, although the disgruntled investor who claims the city's selection process intends to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal refused to overturn Orleans Civil District Judge Tiffany Chase's decision to throw out the case in November.

Florida real estate investor Stuart "Neil" Fisher and his company Two Canal Street Investors sued the city and the New Orleans Building Corp. in April 2015 to block the city's lease of the 33-story building to a development team led by Carpenter & Co. and Woodward Interests.
Yeah so Fisher still isn't going away. If nothing else, that dude certainly does have The Sta-mi-nah. The article quotes him as saying, "The battle is far from over," so, you know, stay tuned.

Kind of neat that we get news about this property and Six Flags on back to back days, though.  We could run a pool on which of those gets resolved first.

Update:  Ha ha Fisher is also going to sue in federal court
He will complain in U.S. District Court, Middle District, that Act 516 of the 2016 Legislative Session, the law that requires cases such as Two Canal’s to move quickly, violated Two Canal’s due process rights.

It’s not clear whether a challenge on that point, rather than on the project itself, will automatically hold up construction. The project’s backers have said that the litigation over the project stopped them from getting title insurance.
That's actually pretty interesting. The law in question was passed as a favor to the mayor in direct response to Fisher's lawsuit.  It probably needs to be challenged regardless of the questions about the WTC project itself.

Oh also.. 
Still, Fisher, who said Wednesday that he is still open to talks about a settlement, is showing no signs of letting up without one. The settlement doesn’t have to come in the form of cash, he added.

“If it doesn’t get resolved, this litigation will be tying us up for at least another year, if not more.”
What would he like in lieu of cash? 

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