Landowners Can Amend Pipeline Complaint

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A chancery court judge has ruled that a group of Eastern Tennessee landowners can file an amended complaint in their suit challenging the legality of a state permit that authorized the placement of pipelines from a Mosheim manufacturing firm to the Nolichucky River.
In a four-page ruling Davidson Chancery Court Judge Ellen Hobbs-Lyle concluded that the landowners can add language to their existing complaint to include charges that the pipeline did not remain within the right-of-way and trespassed on property of the landowners.
She said the amendment could be allowed because the "threatened application (of the permit) interferes with or impairs ... the legal rights or privileges" of the plaintiffs in the case.
The ruling is the latest development in a lengthy legal battle over twin pipelines being utilized by US Nitrogen, a chemical firm producing ammonium nitrate with water taken from the Nolichucky River.
The suit was filed by six landowners with property along the river. Their suit was originally dismissed by another chancery court judge but then reinstated on appeal. Defendants in the case include the Tennessee Department of Transportation, US Nitrogen and the Industrial Development Board of Greeneville and Greene County.
In her ruling Lyle-Hobbs did bar still further additions to the original complaint concluding that those changes would be futile because they "would not have helped the plaintiffs recover under their claims."
She also stated that similar claims already were the subject of litigation in Greene County.
"It is therefore, prejudicial, to have those issues litigated in two forums with the potential for inconsistent results," the ruling states.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com