Good news I copied from another site
Sat, 8 Mar 2014 20:57:18 -0500
To recap: a few years ago Wild Earth Guardians (WEG) sued NM's Game Commission and Department of Game and Fish for not banning / restricting trapping in the NM portion of the wolf recovery range. This suit was basically the same as the two previous suits to ban or restrict trapping in the critical lynx habits of ME and MN. NM's win in Albuquerque federal district court was appealed by WEG to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. The 10 th circuit vacated the appeal, stating that during oral arguments WEG's admitted that they had no standing to bring the suit(an 11th amendment issue).
On Wednesday, 3/5/14, NM's attorneys requested clarification from the 10 Circuit Court of Appeals: Did their decision to vacate WEG's Appeal of WEG vs. McClintic include the lower court's decision in WEG vs. Lane? Thursday 3/6/14, the appellate court answered NO; their decision applied only to WEG vs McClintic leaving the lower court's decision in place.
With this clarification from the 10th circuit, NM and their interveners (NMTA et.al) have won a dismissal; a summary judgment, that establishes pro-trapping case law; prevailed in an appeal, thereby establishing that, under constitutional law, groups like WEG lack legal standing to sue in such issues and now have reaffirmed that the pro-trapping case law from district court will remain intact. Furthermore, this latest clarification, which took less than 24 hours to be handed down, opens the door for the state to go forward and seek reimbursement of all legal funds from WEG's bank account. Should this occur, NM will have dealt the forces of evil (that sounds too sexy to leave out) defeats that may reverse the trend of ESA lawsuits that have cost game departments, private property owners, trappers and sportsman across the nation millions of dollars and lost use of their lands.
The summary judgment from district court was won on the merits of the NM's case; trapping in the wolf recovery range does not constitute a violation of the ESA. The appeal was won on an 11th amendment technicality. All that is left is to hit them where it hurts, the bank account.
Folks, with the proper plan, leadership, focus and legal team WE CAN WIN!
Read more:
http://www.lynxcat.proboards.com/thread/5764/law-suit-win-new-mexico#ixzz2vWdrlkGv
