Nordic’s charge of “tortious interference” a cynical attempt to exhaust its opponents
Lawyers for embattled landowners, Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace, struck back at strongarm tactics of Nordic Aquafarms (NAF) with a December 5th filing in Waldo County Superior Court that points out NAF’s underlying goal is to jack up the cost of Jeffrey and Judith’s defense. Nearly four months ago, on August 18th, NAF served a subpoena on Paul Bernacki, a consultant to the Mabee-Grace legal team requesting copies of “…all communications…” between Bernacki, the plaintiffs, the Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area (the Friends), and other parties involved in the 2-year-old controversy. Bernacki, however, is neither a party to the suit nor is he expected to be a witness on behalf of Mabee and Grace. So what is the point?
“NAF, in its desperation for any type of evidence to support its bogus claims of ‘tortious interference’…has chosen to blow up these items to the level of a ‘Jack the Ripper’ scenario in which Mr. Bernacki is running wild in the streets of Belfast single-handedly shutting down NAF’s project …” argued Mabee-Grace lawyer, Dana Strout. Strout reported that Bernacki dutifully submitted over 14,000 pages of his 2020 communications involving the plaintiff’s Mabee and Grace at a cost of $7,000. “NAF’s requests are the personification and definition of a bad-faith fishing expedition,” Strout stated. “They used 54 out of 14,000 pages.”
After that original delivery, the Mabee-Grace team filed a motion to “quash” the remaining extent of the NAF subpoena: all Bernacki’s 2019 communications, which are estimated to be around 12,000 additional pages. Strout buttressed the argument for shutting off the rest of the subpoena in his December 4th filing, saying: “This is a classic example of a large law firm with evidently unlimited personnel and cash from a client attempting to bankrupt a small non-profit with relentless discovery requests and harass Plaintiffs’ consultant by demanding information with no relationship to the determination of ownership of the intertidal on which Belfast Tax Map 29, Lots 37,36, and 35 front.”
“If NAF wants to proceed with this useless fishing expedition,” Strout concluded, “hoping this time to maybe uncover 60 pages of emails that might have some bearing on tort claims raised solely by NAF and/or the Eckrotes, then NAF should be compelled to deposit the sum of $10,000 into the Plaintiffs’ trust account to cover the costs of such production, including the Plaintiffs’ legal fees incurred in reviewing these documents for [attorney-client] privilege, work product and confidentiality.”
Justice Murray has set Wednesday, December 23rd as the date for a pre-trial hearing on the boundary questions in the case.