Plaintiffs drop claim to attorney fees, other motions in rendering plant related cases
The end, it would seem, is here for real.
In a statement Thursday, plaintiffs and attorneys in two lawsuits related to the once-proposed rendering plant at the Northeast Alabama Regional Airport announced the decision to drop their right to claim legal fees in a case that challenged property zoning related to the proposal, and an open records claim.
"Today, I along with the other plaintiffs in this case, have decided to put the rendering plant case to rest by waiving our claims for attorney fees," said David Chadwick, president of Choice Fabricators, the plaintiff in the open records case and a "plaintiff-intervenor in the zoning challenge."
He said the plaintiffs decided not to ask the taxpayers of Gadsden to bear the cost of paying the lawyer fees.
Etowah County Presiding Judge George Day entered orders dismissing both cases.
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"We accomplished what we set out to do with the zoning case and the Open Records Case — we forced the rendering plant fiasco into the public light and stopped their plan from happening," Chadwick said.
The City of Gadsden had a similar initial response. City Attorney Lee Roberts said in fighting the claims, the city maintained from the start that the case was premature because the city had taken no legislative action regarding the plant.
Roberts said the case was resolved with the defeat of the two issues the city fought against: the "blatant attempt" to bind the hands of future city councils, and the effort to set a misguided precedent which would allow a court to bar consideration of any issue by a legislative body."
"The GAA is obviously pleased to see the zoning case finally dismissed," the authority said in a statement late Thursday afternoon. "The GAA has maintained from the beginning that the lawsuit was due to be dismissed as moot, and has made that argument on numerous occasions in Court.
"In fact, the Court dismissed the case as moot on June 6, 2022, as a direct result of the Motions for Summary Judgment filed by the GAA and the City of Gadsden, both of which were argued in Court on April 15, 2022," the statement continued. "The Plaintiffs were not the 'winners' in this case, and were never entitled to have their fees paid by the Citizens of Etowah County based on Alabama law.
"The members of the board of the GAA will continue to work hard to make the Northeast Alabama Regional Airport a great resource for our community. That has been the focus of the GAA throughout this process and it will continue to guide the GAA in the future."
The history
In November 2020, Chadwick learned that Pilgrim's Pride was seeking air permits from ADEM for a proposed animal parts rendering plant on property owned by the Gadsden Airport Authority along Steele Station Road, near his business and others, residential housing, schools and at least one church.
Resulting social media posts were the first public notice of the possible plant, and set off a widespread public response against the plant. In the next month, Dynamic Collision, a business adjacent to the plant, filed a lawsuit raising zoning questions, and nuisance claims. A number of area property owners joined the lawsuit.
Later another suit was filed claiming by Choice Fabricators and Advance Etowah, a community group born out of the opposition to the plant, claiming the City and other defendants had not supplied requested public records.
The legal wars had been waged in Etowah County court ever since, even after parties involved, including the Gadsden Airport Authority and the City of Gadsden, passed resolutions renouncing any effort to locate a rendering plant at the airport. Pilgrim's Pride announced it had dropped any such plans, and surrendered any permits that had been issued by ADEM for the project.
In early June, Presiding Judge George Day dismissed the zoning suit, saying the plaintiffs had achieved the goals they set out to achieve in its initial filing. The plaintiffs sought legal fees from the defendants, citing the judge having designated them as the "prevailing party."
The plaintiff
Chadwick said its clear in the judge's order that he intended to consider awarding the plaintiff's fees, noting that the plaintiffs had "prevailed in the litigation and because that litigation provided a benefit to our entire county."
The plaintiffs prevailed in the open records case, as well, he said, and are "putting that case to rest by waiving our claims for attorney fees."
"We filed that case at the beginning of the rendering plant fiasco to force the City of Gadsden, Gadsden Airport Authority and Gadsden Water Works and Sewer Board to disclose public records to us regarding their behind-closed-doors actions to bring the rendering plant to the airport," Chadwick maintained in his statement.
He said that took filing the lawsuit, legal motions, Freedom of Information Act requests, a three-day hearing in the zoning case, subpoenas and depositions.
Chadwick said the plaintiffs had a right to be reimbursed, but this case "was never about attorney fees or any other objective other than to stop the rendering plant and to save the community we love."
"The Gadsden taxpayers have already had to pay over $300,000 to out-of-town lawyers representing the Gadsden Airport Authority and who knows how much for its own legal counsel," he said.
Plaintiffs in the zoning case were Dynamic Collision Inc., Choice Fabricators Inc., ZLA Solutions Inc., Butler Properties LLC, Clark Greer, Jordan Greer, Todd Hardin, Craig Inzer, Mark Weaver, Jerry Weaver, Harold Weaver, Bryan White, Keith Holland, Randy Vice, Bo Shirley, Trent Thrasher Construction, William Leach, Jared Minton, Lawrence Williamson III, Mason Caldwell, Teresa Drummond, J.Craig King, J.D. Holt, and Perman Engineering Co. Inc.
Contact Gadsden Times reporter Donna Thornton at 256-393-3284 or donna.thornton@gadsdentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Gadsden rendering plant lawsuit: Plaintiffs drop remaining claims
