Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Mitch wins round one

Judge Zeno has ruled in favor of the City on all three major issues regarding the Wisner Trust.  He ruled the trust is public, he ruled the trust is not perpetual and expires in 2014 and he ruled that Mayor Landrieu doesn't have to seek the approval of the Advisory Committee before he spends the City's portion of the money.

He did not rule on whether or not the current heirs have standing.

I don't have the court decision yet but I will get it as soon as I can and post it.

Zeno's decision doesn't suprise me too much....I pointed that out before the hearing.   As I stated before, never play poker with a man named after a city or a man running a city...and the judiciary

The matter will now be appealed to the 4th Circuit where Mayor Landrieu's sister, Madeleine, resides.

UPDATE:  Here is the judgement.  

Wow...it took him all of three pages.  Zeno addressed virtually nothing that was brought up in the hearing or in the court filings.  My report on the hearing was three times longer than this and it took me about four hours to write.  It took him three weeks to write ten paragraphs in which the only real point he addressed was a cut and paste job directly from the City's filing...amazing.    

And I should state that I don't know for sure that the matter will be appealed to the 4th Circuit but I'm assuming it will be.  I hope it will.  I'd like to see the matter addressed somewhere outside of the Orleans Parish Civil District Court. 

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I see the dollah signs in Mitch's eyes already.

Kevin said...

Michael Sherman:

Do you have your For Sale signs ready to go, or do you already have a buyer lined up?

Anonymous said...

Zeno is a product of the 24th JDC. MITCH's wife is the Clerk of Court for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal. It's a stranglehold no matter where you turn.

Anonymous said...

And, Mitch made a big showing for Justice Bernette Johnson when she was rightfully fighting to become Chief Justice.

Guess what other judge's daughter is clerk to Chief Justice Johnson?

Jason Brad Berry said...

http://www.theamericanzombie.com/2013/07/the-benchwarmer-playbook.html

If you read the blog you know what happened when I went to get the Court order from Chief Justice Johnson that originally appointed Nadine Ramsey as Ad Hoc...refer to link above.

"Guess what other judge's daughter is clerk to Chief Justice Johnson?"

But this I'm not aware of....I'm all ears.

Anonymous said...

"But this I'm not aware of....I'm all ears."

Carl Barbier

Jason Brad Berry said...

What a timely revelation....stay tuned.

Kevin said...

Interesting that "Wisner Ladies" pops up from nowhere on page 2. And, why does the court refer to itself as "we" and "our" throughout the ruling?

Jason Brad Berry said...

Yeah he's a preacher so I figured he was speaking like th Pipe does, as the incarnation of tr trinity.

Either that or he had a mouse in his pocket when he wrote it.

Jason Brad Berry said...

Typing on phone...The Pope...trinity.

Jason Brad Berry said...

Of course he could have been on a conference call...

Jason Brad Berry said...

Webex maybe? I hear all the cool kids are into that these days.

Anonymous said...

This ruling leaves more questions than answers. Very poorly done on the judge's part, in my opinion. It would seem to me that the appellate court, assuming it goes, would throw this back in the hands of Zeno to complete the ruling.
Am I wrong here? Anyone else see that?

Jason Brad Berry said...

If that's the case then the City Attorneys better get busy writing it for him.

Anonymous said...

This Judge (term used loosely in this case) is either simple or just plain lazy. He neglected to answer much of the questions in litigation. The few he answered did not appear to be backed by any matter of law.

Very poor.

Or perhaps, he just did not want to get in Mitch's way - or, or he walked away with a seat on some Board Mitch awarded him.

Much like Ron Gardner received for his votes.

Anonymous said...

The Wisner heirs should tell the whole story of what their lawyers, the Millings, did to them.

Perhaps then they can get back all or part of the 680,000 acres stolen from them.

And when they do recover that land, they can give the City of New Orleans the land in the trust.