Legalectric

Joyce Vance does a great SUCCINCT job explaining.

Here it is, the brief that everyone’s twitting about:

There’s always a first time…

Today was the Probable Cause hearing on the Overland Complaint — Carol A. Overland, Complainant, v. Gary Iocco, Iocco for Red Wing Mayor, RRJ Redwing LLC, and Wilson Oil Co, Respondents, OAH File 21-0325-40299.

Last night I’d received a copy of the Lease, which answer some questions (but leaves others open), and so I wrote up a letter and filed the lease with OAH and sent around to the parties.

Because the lease is between Dehn Oil and Gary Iocco, that takes Wilson Oil out of the mix, so I put in writing that I’d withdraw Wilson Oil from the Complaint and filed that late last night. However, Dehn Oil is not the owner of the property, it’s RRJ Red Wing, LLC, so what does that mean??

Probable Cause hearing… it’s 10:00 a.m, well, 9:59 a.m. rolls around, and I call in and get put in queue to wait for “leader” to open the line. Wait… wait… wait… and WAIT.. 13 minutes on hold, that’s very unusual, and so I called back, waited another 4 minutes, and it’s way late and odd. I tried and tried and tried… next I emailed the staff person who had sent out the notice, called the general line trying to reach someone, and finally got ahold of a real human, and got the bad news…

I HAD THE WRONG CONFERENCE CODE!

The correct conference code was on page 8 of the pdf Notice, not page 1! And then I was told even worse news — that the Complaint had been dismissed, default, because I didn’t show up! AAAAAAACK!

Yes, I tried and tried, but as Eddie Berger often said, “Tryin’ is lyin’, ’cause if you were tryin’, you’d be doin’ it!”

… sigh… Never has that happened in 29 years of practice. Utter disaster. You could probably see the mushroom cloud when my head exploded.

BUT, all is not lost… There is some good news! I got a call from an OAH staff attorney who told me that the oral Motion to Dismiss had been “taken under advisement,” and if I wanted to challenge, I had to get that filed by 4:30 on Friday. OK, no problem, I can do that!

WHEW, so there is hope… and here we go!

This below has been filed at Office of Administrative Hearings, emailed to those I have emails for, and mailed by U.S. Mail to ALL. When we have proof in hand that there’s been a significant prohibited corporate contribution, per Minn. Stat. §211B.15, I sure hope this does go forward.

Now we wait…