RI SC Webcast - Not Quite Ready for Primetime

It's a dirty job but someone has to do it - that is, provide lead paint watchers with more facts about the Rhode Island Supreme Court oral arguments today.  Some of you told me that the webcast was of poor quality.  A technology isn't always ready for primetime.

Here is what you might not know that you should:

• ARCO Successorship Liability Issue re ALPC.  Motley Rice attorney Jack McConnell rested with his brief.  He did not present an oral presentation.  Asked around why, no one speculated. But John Tarantino, a local attorney representing ARCO, held court.

 

• Re ALPC, Tarantino described the record as "barren" of anything which would provide evidence that ARCO inherited the liabilities of AL PC.  He sliced through the claim that the trial court did not allow this liability into the trial because the state "could not meet all five of the mere continuation exception factors" [language from plaintiff brief to RI SC] and said it couldn't meet one or two or three.  Tarantino put out there as his strongest argument that known creditors claims which preceded transfer were not presented for about 75 years and didn't emerge until this trial.

• Contingency was BIG.  Here Tarantino and Kelly were the key presenters.  The Court seemed to reframe this whole enchilada from a focus on control, ethics, and the profit motive to one of separation of powers.  One Justice noted that he perceived this as a question of bypassing the authority of the General Assembly. That body, not the Office of the Attorney General, contended the Justice, should have the complete say over revenues.  When the AG agrees that the private counsel hired on contingency gets 16+ percent if there's a win, the GA loses control over revenues.  Kelly was reprimanded by the Justice for not knowing if the contingency agreement would reimburse costs to the private counsel even if the case is lost.  Tarantino fought for the idea that "Clancy" is relevant to this contingency matter.

• Clearly the High Court was struggling to 1) define public nuisance and 2) determine if one existed in RI.

• Yes, as predicted, "Woods" and "Santa Clara" cases figured prominently in hearing.

• A  cute tidbit was that the defense presenter for Millennium, now based in Maine, had once lived in the house on 185 Pleasant Street that has lead paint.

Stay tuned.  More facts/deconstruction to come.