Sponsors’ Statement:
The referendum sponsors are being personally sued by Wasatch Peaks Ranch (WPR) for $5 million dollars. WPR claims the sponsors’ actions in exercising their constitutional rights to seek a citizens’referendum and judicial review of the County’s rejection of the referendum application is a civil conspiracy that has delayed their development and caused them financial harm.
The sponsors believe that people have a fundamental constitutional and statutory right to pursue a referendum, and the referendum process grants them the right to petition for judicial review if the referendum application is rejected. As with every legal action, there are laws or facts in contention between the parties to that legal action that need to be addressed by the civil court system. Normally, the parties agree to disagree and let the court system resolve the dispute. WPR, using a large national law firm, has gone beyond the normal process for the resolution of civil claims and is seeking to punitively sue the sponsors, seeking personal liability, simply because they do not agree with the sponsors’ legal position. The sponsors believe that Utah law allows citizens to exercise their rights without facing personal liability as long as they exercise their legal rights in the legal process in good faith. Evidently, WPR believes that the sponsors’ use of statutory and legal processes and a disagreement in differing legal positions is tantamount to interference and conspiracy.
The sponsors had to endure rumors of being sued by WPR from the beginning of the referendum process. After the referendum appeal was dismissed by the District Court, WPR spoke with not less than two persons in the community with connections to the sponsors letting them know that if the sponsors’ appealed the dismissal of the petition, they could expect to be personally sued. Despite this, the sponsors did appeal the dismissal of the petition, and WPR filed suit the following week asking for a judgment of not less than 5 million dollars based on a tortuous interference and conspiracy claims. These claims allege that the sponsors knew the petition application was faulty and conspired to submit a faulty application to the County, conspired to petition the County’s rejection of the application for a judicial review, and then again conspired to appeal the District Court’s ruling to the Supreme Court for the sole purpose of causing harm to WPR.
The sponsors believe that WPR’s lawsuit is an attempt by WPR to leverage their immense financial advantage over regular citizens of Morgan County to pressure the sponsors to abandon their referendum appeal or, in the alternative, bankrupt the referendum effort. The cost of filing and toying with such a lawsuit is pocket change to a big money developer like WPR. However, the cost for an ordinary citizen sponsor to defend against such a claim is significant. The sponsors believe that this type of lawsuit is contrary to democratic principles and represents a direct attack upon our democratic processes and an abuse of our civil legal procedures. WPR’s attempt to assert personal liability against the sponsors will have a chilling impact on future citizens who may want to challenge government action that is contrary to the will of the people and the best interests of average citizens. If this type of action is allowed to stand, then Utah will not have a functional land-use referendum process because no citizen has the ability to withstand personal lawsuits filed by out- of-state developers backed by big money and employing large nation-wide law firms.
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CLICK HERE and please donate! Funds are needed to pay the legal costs in our fight to obtain a judicial review of the County’s rejection of our referendum petition application. This process is expensive so larger donations are appreciated, but any amount will help.