Nordic Aquafarms drops damage claims against local opponents

Earlier today, attorneys for Nordic Aquafarms and landowners Janet and Richard Eckrote agreed to drop all four damage claims against landowners Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace and the Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area (HLH) at a scheduling conference called by Superior Court Justice Robert Murray. 

Nordic dropped its charge of “tortious interference with an advantageous relationship.” [See Count II of the CounterClaims/Cross-Claims.] The Eckrotes dropped their charges of “slander of title” [Count III], “statutory and common trespass [Count IV], and “tortious interference with an advantageous relationship” [Count VII]. 

The charges were made in a legal battle launched in July 2019 by Mabee and Grace to defend their ownership in and conservation of certain intertidal land. Nordic and the Eckrotes alleged that the lawsuit Mabee and Grace filed jeopardized an agreement they had that allowed Nordic to lay three pipelines across the Eckrote’s property and through the intertidal mudflats below it. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court (a/k/a “the Law Court”) decided on February 16, 2023 that Mabee-Grace were the owners of the disputed intertidal land and that they had created a valid and enforceable conservation on it, held by Friends. Since the Eckrotes never owned the mudflats, neither they nor Nordic were “damaged” by Mabee-Grace’s ownership claims or their conservation easement on the intertidal area.