Cox v Town Of Oriental Now On Line

All of the documents for the case of Cox v Town of Oriental are now available on line at the NC Court of Appeals web site: http://www.ncappellatecourts.org/search-results.php?sDocketSearch=13-1222&exact=1

Any of you who are interested in the right of way dispute can now read all of the documents the Court of Appeals will consider.

No one can predict how the Court will rule, but I thinkI have by far the better argument.

Right of Way law is a bit esoteric. For the most part, it is based on Common Law - that is, law made by courts, not by legislators. Statutes can always override Common Law, but often they merely codify or clarify Common Law where there is some ambiguity.

In most cases, people's eyes glaze over when the topic of "right of way" law comes up. Even Linda Greenhouse, a  Supreme Court wonk who writes about the US Supreme Court for the New York Times, missed the significance of the US Supreme Court's ruling in its most recent case, MARVIN M. BRANDT REVOCABLE TRUST, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES, decided March 10, 2014.

On the face of it, Brand was just another boring right of way case. Greenhouse couldn't figure out what the case was really about until she read Sonya Sotomayor's dissent in the 8-1 decision. The U.S. lost, by the way.

One thing becomes clear from the case: precedents matter. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, explains: “The government loses th[e] argument today, in large part because it won when it argued the opposite before this court more than 70 years ago,” he wrote.

Sotomayor's was the sole dissent. She argued that the 70 year old case shouldn’t govern the outcome of this one because it had involved subterranean rights — the right to drill for oil — rather than the simple surface rights now at issue. In Justice Sotomayor’s final paragraph, Greenhouse at last understood why the decision might matter: “The court undermines the legality of thousands of miles of former rights of way that the public now enjoys as means of transportation and recreation,” Sotomayor wrote, adding: “And lawsuits challenging the conversion of former rails to recreational trails alone may well cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Rails to Trails. Established by Congress with the National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983. A procedure established in the public interest.

My case is not dissimilar. I have not argued that the Town [that is, the municipal corporation which has legal rights like any other corporation] made a bad deal. I argue that they have no statutory right to make any deal at all - that the only thing of value they had to sell or trade was their vote. And that what's at stake is public access to the water.

I'll address our arguments in more detail later, but as the Town's web site says, "it's all about the water."

I'm Getting Too Old For All-Nighters - Or Even Almost-All-Nighters

Cox v Town of Oriental is taking more energy than I had hoped. Or maybe it is that I'm not as young as I used to be - but who is?

Last Sunday I was up most of the night reviewing the plaintiff appellant's (that's me) reply brief. What should I say about "defendant-appelant's" ( the Town) brief?

There was a lot to cover. Cases to read, past records to review, logical connections to think through. It isn't easy.

Is it worth it?

I think what is at stake is, at bottom, whether we will have the rule of law, and whether that law will protect the public interest.

In my view, those are pretty high stakes.

I never intended that the case be seen as a personal dispute.

I keep thinking of that scene in Godfather where the racketeer is taken for a ride: "This isn't personal - it's business!" the killer assures his victim.

My action isn't all that drastic.

I am told that the NC Court of Appeals has the goal of issuing its rulings no more than sixty days after receiving a case. The attorney filed the reply brief yesterday.

We may know the outcome in two months. But some cases take longer.

I will let my readers know when the reply brief is posted on the Court's web site.

Have You Ever Visited Beringia?

I have never quite bought the conjecture that North America was populated by people walking along the "land bridge" from Asia and bringing their Clovis points with them.

Why could they not have come by Sea? In fact, that's the way the aborigines reached Australia 30,000 years ago.  My surmise is that the land bridge theory is written by landsmen. Seamen know that the most efficient way to get from one place to the other is by water.

Now, though, we have new tools for investigating our ancient past. We have, for example, DNA studies that have been able to trace the migration of certain populations across the globe as they came out of Africa and dispersed.

We have been able to trace particular DNA mutations from place to place. We also know, to a fair degree, how often mutations happen.

Another improving tool is that of linguistic analysis. Linguists can also track evolution of languages and language families as they spread, mutate, interact and evolve.

A powerful new marriage of DNA research and linguistics postulates that, instead of a bridge connecting Asia and North America, there was an area of shrub tundra between Alaska and Siberia where ancestors of both Native Americans and Siberian peoples lived in isolation for 15,000 years before migrating both Eastward and Westward as the sea level began to rise.

Here is a summary of the research that tends to support this view.

I still like the hypothesis that Native Americans came by sea.

Why Is Ukraine's Economy So Fouled Up?

Justin Fox in Harvard Business Review has an interesting article on Ukraine's economy. Why is it so bad? In a nutshell - rampant corruption.

New Town Manager

I like what I read about the experience and education of the new Town Manager. I look forward to meeting her.

I have just one piece of advice - but she seems sharp enough to figure it out herself. Don't have a protracted turnover. I suggest no more than two or three days. Any more than that tends to confuse staff about who they really work for.

Scenes Of Kiev, 1997

In 1997, I took a couple of business trips to Kiev. I was working on a USAID contract to assist in privatization of Ukrainian real estate. Not a simple matter. But I was able to see some of the city.

Ukraine National Day 1997- Band Played Only Sousa Marches

Maidan Square

Fountain In Maidan Square

Column In Maidan Square

Lenin

Musician On Cathedral Grounds

Affordable Care Act - The Real Story

Two weeks ago we were all watching the Winter Olympics in Sochi (as Putin was plotting the takeover of Crimea), frequently interrupted by a blonde woman whining that "Obamacare doesn't work." She also said she doesn't like political ads, even as she was making one. Her complaint that millions of Americans were losing their health insurance just isn't so.

Anecdotes about losing insurance, when examined closely, mostly relate to insurance policies that don't insure. So-called "catastrophic insurance."

A friend of mine had one of those. It didn't cover preventive care. He couldn't afford regular doctor's visits, but kept enough savings to cover the deductible. In short, he was as responsible as anyone in his economic circumstances could be.

When the catastrophe came, he had stage four colon cancer. Treatment took all of his savings and kept him alive for about a year. As insurance, his policy was all but worthless.

Since the Affordable Care Act, previously uninsured individuals now have insurance. Persons who previously would have been unable to get insurance because of "pre-existing conditions" can now get insurance.

Here is the story of one cancer patient whose life was saved.

Here is an earlier post of mine explaining the Republican scheme to discredit ACA. 

Ukraine's Memorandum of 1994 Agreeing to Give Up Nuclear Weapons In Return For Security Guarantee

Here is the agreement of 1994 whereby Ukraine gave up her nuclear weapons in return for a security guarantee.

Russian occupation of Crimea clearly violates that agreement.