Chalk Up More Wins For SEMO.net in Court!

Apr 04, 2012

Today we were back in court because the city filed 3 more motions against us.

Motion one, Wally withdrew because we had not received it.

Motions two and three the judge denied on the spot.

I stopped counting how many times Wally made a statement to the judge, I walked up and handed my attorney paperwork which showed Mr Duncan was not fully aware of the facts.

Duncan:  Appendix “C” of the Municipal Utilities Manual doesn’t apply to this situation

we hand the judge the policy with a highlighted section which states the process is for “All situations” regarding payments and billing

Duncan:  The dispute policy only applies to residential customers

we hand the judge minutes from a Municipal Utilities Board meeting which extends the policy to business & industrial customers

Duncan: The dispute policy has clearly defined steps which weren’t followed by Mr. Becker & SEMO.net

we hand the judge seven dispute letters, a letter of appeal and Mr Bach’s responses

Duncan: We did have a dispute hearing set but SEMO.net requested to delay it

we hand the judge an email from the CITY’s attorney, Carl Lumley, asking if the dispute hearing could be delayed; and an email where we accepted the delay as long as the hearing could be rescheduled if either party requests

Duncan: Well, they never requested that we reschedule hearing

we hand the judge an email to Lumley requesting the dispute hearing be re-instituted

we hand the judge a letter from Becker to Bach asking for the dispute hearing to be re-instituted

Duncan: The city has exhausted its administrative remedies

we hand the judge the line in the policy which shows the city can only make that claim if they follow ALL the steps in the policy manual (which Duncan already admitted they hadn’t)

Another great day in court!!!  Jury trial has been rescheduled for June 6 & 7.

The quote of the day HAD to be from Judge Ligons,

“It’s a difficult and complicated case, Mr Duncan, I suggest you prepare for that.”

  1. Dennis

    Mr. Duncan was obviously not prepared and wouldn’t have had anything if he had been… God Speed Brian!

  2. thomas

    hell yeah, this is great. believe it lovely that he wasnt ready. sounds like a win for us at this rate. thank you brian, for standing up for our city and the people of poplar bluff. it takes alot of courage to take on the whole city.