James LaMountain filed his next lawsuit.

Last Friday December 4, 2009, farmer James LaMountain filed a lawsuit alleging violations of his civil rights as a farmer in the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts. The defendants in this lawsuit are James Wettlaufer, one of the three selectmen of the town of Holland, and two officials of the DEP. The lawsuit comes on the heals of a recent evidentiary hearing conducted by Judge Daniel Ford that ended in an order requesting Northeast Concepts and James LaMountain to pay a fine of $75’000 each. During the evidentiary hearing judge Ford refused to consider exculpatory evidence, especially LaMountain’s exemption as a farmer.

LaMountain in front of his Huguenot Farm truck Earlier in the proceedings, LaMountain’s attorney, Erin O’Neil Baker, missed a deadline. Consequently the DEP requested a default judgment on liability in the case which was granted. The mishap of LaMountain’s attorney effectuated the default judgment on liability as a matter of procedural law.

During the evidentiary hearing judge Ford based his decision on the default judgment which declared LaMountain as liable. The Holland Blog reported about the incident in the piece, What really happened...

The town will have to pay the liability insurance company MIIA their self-deductible for defending against the lawsuit. The cost is in the neighborhood of $10,000 a pop.
If my count is correct, this is the seventh suit filed in Federal Court against town officials since Stacy Quinones filed the first complaint against the town in Federal Court back in 2002. I can not imagine what the constant filing of lawsuits does to the insurance premium MIIA charges the town..

To read the LaMountain’s complaint, click here (66KB)!

Click on any of the bold/italic typed terms to see the document, Exhibit 1 (6.21MB), Exhibit 2 (4.29MB), Exhibit 3 (2.37MB), Exhibit 4 (1.44MB), Exhibit 5 (6.29MB), Exhibit 6 (388KB), Exhibit 7 (450KB), Exhibit 8A (283KB), Exhibit 8C (2.08MB), Exhibit 9 (2.61MB), Exhibit 10 (414KB).

To see the entry on the Pacer webpage, click here!

December 9, 2009, Peter Frei